Red Eyes
by frostdragon64
Summary: Post-Brawl, post MGS4. No one expected it. Zero-Two, a villain from Kirby's world, revived Subspace, did away with the Hands, and dealt with the Smashers in a way no one thought possible. Everyone, gone. Except Snake. But how is he supposed to help... If he's supposed to be dead? No author's notes, no serious pairings; rated T for various reasons.
1. Ashes

XxX

_Ashes_

He was supposed to be dead.

He wasn't, and that worried him.

An eruption of fire, vibrant with nearly every color of the rainbow, burst to life to his left. A cavalcade of trees groaned and toppled over, unable to handle the stress, the heat, the lick of flames all around. His breath echoed in his ears, his lungs burned themselves down to sparks. The time had flown fast. How long had he been running?

How long had it been? Life… This strange feeling of… living… since when did he ever receive it after giving it away?

There was a nip at his ear, then an explosion at his back.

His mind blanked out, hidden by flashes of red. His leading foot dragged into the dirt and pulled him down like an anchor. Air blew out of his mouth; his next inhale sucked in dirt. He coughed diluted blood as he rose off his stomach into a kneeling position.

Warmth, uncontrollable warmth, warmth that rivaled the core of the earth, at his back forced him onto two feet. Crackling, the firs behind tumbled over in a heap, scattering ashes and black shapes like lazy phoenix feathers suspended on updrafts of warmth. Legs churned, chest heaved, heart pounded. Smoke curled skyward, snaking over the sun and turning blue to gray. There was another nip at his hand. He wrenched his hand away; the pain remained, but didn't disappear. His head shuddered at the feeling.

There it was: the explosion, again. In his back, a second time, slightly below the first one, the coldness of it not new to him. He felt something build in his throat. It came out as a scream.

When he fell on his face he crawled forward, palms scooping up dirt and dust, scathing embers sinking into exposed skin in a fiery snowfall that burned the earth to a crisp. He felt them: remnants of the explosions, tips of cold, pointed metal scraping his spine, tethered there by shafts of splintered wood.

Inch by inch, he moved his arm. Up, up, and over. Stiff fingers wrapped around the shaft and yanked upwards. The explosion bloomed anew, and a howl rent the tepid sky. The cold metal clattered to the ground. Once more, there was a yell, and the frosted touch dissolved into a burning that piled upon the first explosion. He held a second arrow in his hand. Blood on his fingers, on the arrowhead, in the earth around him. Moisture clouded his eyes. A bead of crimson blood grew into a dome on his earlobe. Teeth bit into dry flesh.

One foot. Another foot. They propped themselves up, and he was on his feet, standing, hunched over, carrying a weight upon his back. He stepped forward. His teeth drew blood.

The pain was in his mind. It bowed his back, hammered at his spinal cord, trickled down his hip and his legs until he could barely move them. His muscles, his own body, weren't responding; they were distracted.

_Get out._

The pain shrugged in seeming carelessness and resumed its conquest.

An explosion. Another one, in his shoulder. Left.

He jerked, and when he settled, he was unconscious.

XxX

He felt himself blink. Eyelids fluttering, stinging with every movement.

His shoulder was pressed against something thick, hard, cold. Pebbled dug into his chest, the sides of his legs, his arms. He couldn't feel his left shoulder. His eyes blurred. Moisture on his chest, hands rigid behind his back.

There was a faint murmur. Somewhere off in the distance, above him. No more than the brush of a feathered wing flying higher than the clouds, or the whisper of a gentle breeze. It was toneless, filled with neither malice nor content. It was masculine, feminine, both at the same time. The voice itself was a void. Filled with nothing.

He felt his right hand twitch with a life of its own.

The voice cleared. The tone: deep yet somehow alto-soprano; the accent unplaceable. The inflection went nowhere, and yet seemed to spiral out in every direction, absorbing and reflecting everything at once.

It, this nameless entity, this boundless voice, said, "You're awake."

How was he to respond?

"That was quite a chase you led us on. That forest didn't need burning. The mansion, however… There's a different story for that." The voice paused, and there was a rustle of coarse fabric. "Although I'm sure it makes sense to you already. You knew what needed to be done. A cardinal rule of war: burn the lodgings of your enemy, and they will surely gather at your waiting, eager feet like moths to a firelight."

He tried to roll over onto his stomach, and he nearly blacked out. Something like a volcano surged in his head, his abdomen. Arcs of lava spiraled about, and flows of ash and noxious fumes billowed down the slopes as something brought him up to his knees using his upper body, before this strange voice.

_Get off your knees. Bow to no one. Don't… bow…_

He didn't respond. Couldn't.

"But there are no moths anymore. No people to trace. Just you." The voice grew a quiet edge, laced with a softness resembling a mellow rainstorm, patting out a rhythm of clicks, beats, and gentle thumps against rooftops. The words it spoke, with menace hidden in every cubbyhole and cranny, flashed through, bolts of lightning and the calls of thunder startling the rain into silence. "You are the only one left. Of course, I'd say you cheated. But that wouldn't make any sense. At the same time, however, it would." There was a pause, and then: "Perhaps you should have been left alone. It would be better if you stayed dead. For nearly everyone involved."

His voice, quiet with a rough, sandpaper quality, spoke on its own. "Should have said something earlier."

"When I say 'everyone', I don't mean me. My apologies for the misunderstanding." The rainstorm was back in the mysterious voice as there were two successive clicks against the stone he sat upon. It was kicking the foot of its chair in a manner that resembled an excited child waiting for presents. "I mean those you call your allies, your friends, your comrades. Do you blame yourself for being the last one? The only survivor? Well, you've had experience with that." Its words stopped sharply, as did the tapping. "I know."

He looked up, through a sheet of blood. His neck cried out but did not falter. "What are you talking about?"

The figure, obscured partially by a blurred, bloodstained vision and the indomitable aura of its voice, moved the smallest inch. "I don't spoil every secret told to me. I'm sure you understand."

He blinked. Once, twice. His vision was clear, and he could see.

The figure that sat before him on a throne of pearly, red marble wore a robe of white, stained a rust-red and pockmarked with holes and long gashes from which blood seeped freely from snow-pale skin. Bandages wrapped around the whole of the head, illuminated like bed-sheets under a halo of yellow, under a dying moon. Two cheekbones jutted out from underneath the gauze, bathed in steep shadow.

A red iris enlarged a white pupil, gazing down from the throne above with unblinking tenacity, like the eye of a hawk that has singled out prey. "You look worse for wear. Then again, my newly-recruited soldiers were harsher than necessary, bringing you here. Again, I apologize."

"You're…" One word. That's all he had.

"I am glad for your ability to talk. What intelligence was left at your conception has still carried through. I would call your conception a natural birth, if not for the fact that it was not. At least, not completely."

His throat choked on itself, but he muttered, coughing, vision going red, "Just stop with the bad guy rhetoric and get this over with."

The voice tutted, as if scolding a family pet. "You would like to end this so quickly? Don't you have any hope? Any last wishes, or desires you wish to fulfill before ending your miserable, murderous life?" It spat those words, words that left a sour taste, that burned the air with their acridity. "A life that, since its 'conception', has brought nothing but suffering, bitterness, anger, and sadness. Do you really think you deserve a quiet death? No." Its voice rose in volume, the calm demeanor it carried like a mask shattered from the inside out, cracks flying outward, exposing a darkened, dismal interior devoid of light. "You, like all others that have crossed my path, deserve so much more. Or less, perhaps. Either way."

The figure chuckled softly and stepped off the throne, descending the steps as if descending from the heavens to deliver retribution, back straight, head raised, shoulders tall and laid in bedrock. As it drew a thorn-ridden, whip-thin vine from the base of his marble throne, it murmured, "I should say nothing else. This is old news to you, I suppose."

And it lashed its arm forward, whip uncurling against his bare chest in a shower of crimson rain. Before he could fall over, muscles gone limp, mind on meltdown, the being grabbed his shoulder to steady him. Its grasp was like iron. The whip came a second time, curling backwards and then forwards. Then again. Again.

A punch came to his stomach, fast, a catapult launch behind its delivery. It slammed into his solar plexus, cracking something under his skin and pushing bile up his windpipe. Then another, this time to the center of his face. Something shattered in his left cheek.

The grip on his shoulder subsided. He fell at last, face flush to the wet earth, nose painted red, breath coming in shallow gulps of mildewed air. A fire burned over his skin, in his mind, hissing in glee. "You… you done yet?"

"No. Not yet."

It took a step back. There was a bright flash, a ring of light that spread outwards. The halo passed over his head, knocking away support columns and red walls with the reverberations of bombshells. Clouds of dust drifted over, clogging the air and scratching his lungs.

Shaking, he angled his head upwards.

One eye. Red, the iris black, the pupil white. A gleaming halo, coated in a thin layer of rust that fell like copper snow, shining like a second sun. Wings, the tips dipped in red, hovered above its back. A white, raindrop-formed body dipped down midair and caught itself, an out-of-control pendulum held back by one invisible string.

Through the haze, he heard, with perfect clarity, a voice that harkened the fiercest of storms. He heard the words, words that meant nothing, and meant everything.

"You may call me… Zero-Two."

Then, there was a pause.

It was just for a second. Just. Not a minute, not an hour, not a day, a week, a month. One second.

And then, there was pain. Pure, indescribable pain, limitless, remorseless. Pain that knew no bounds, no restrictions.

Pain.

His back arched, and when he relaxed, so did his heartbeat.

XxX


	2. Acquaintance

XxX

_Acquaintance_

The sky above was black: the shades of blue, of white, of purple or red, replaced by a blanket of ink that seemed to stretch on, end over end. Streaks of indigo light danced in the darkened sky, acrobatic fireworks in the cool stagnant emptiness, twirling and hanging midair before somersaulting, leaping over each other. No longer was there a sun; the warmth that spoke of blood-hot flares and rising temperatures had cooled to an icy, shapeless mist that flew adrift on the back of silence.

He lay on his back, chest pulsing in rhythm to his heart. Ba-bump. Bump. Bmp. His head felt light, weightless enough to spiral up to the stars, to the borders of the known world and past. He told himself to move; his arms, his legs, his face, everything stiffened, paralyzed. His back felt hot, too hot, and if he waited that hotness turned to a coldness that couldn't be told apart from one or the other. It burned, and then it froze.

His wrists could move. One hand, gentle of touch, patted down his chest. Skin, free of clothing. Then his legs. Pants, texture grainy and crusted over with dried dirt that clung to his fingertips. He let the hand droop down next to him. Elbow slammed into the ground, jarring.

The sky, a void of black, beckoned with one pointed claw. Those purple streaks clamped onto his vision and held on. They seemed to replicate, doubling over, two ribbons next to one another, and then would combine in a fluid movement like running brooks merging into a stream.

He let his eyelids fall. Vision fading, strength sinking deeper and deeper until it had buried itself, he let his hand twitch once. His fingers jerked up; they settled back down wordlessly.

They clenched into a fist. Fingernails, chipped and blackened with grime, tensed and dug into his palms. Slowly, carefully, a strategist planning an attack and going over every possible scenario in his mind, he rolled over onto his stomach. It heaved; there was nothing in it. He rose. First onto his knees, then onto two feet. Slowly, don't rush this…

One step. Then two. Three, four. His feet padded along the ground.

The ground was smooth, like a seamless patch of tiles, like hardwood. Unpaved and unmarked, glinting obsidian under the illumination of violet lava in the air, blending with the toneless sky in an unbroken palette.

A joint in his ankle cracked. The shock cascaded down his toes and soared up bone and muscles. He stuttered to a halt. _Clack, _went his spine.

He yelled; no one was around.

His feet yelled in tandem, as did his shoulder. He bowed at the waist, bowed before nothing, clutching his side. A sticky warmth clung to his hand.

One step. Then another. Don't stop, you can't stop, you can't afford to, there're things that need to be done, don't stick around, dear God... Keep moving. Keep it up, the ground isn't nearly as nice for walking as it is for lying down, but keep at it… Don't… Hesitate… Walk, just walk, for God's sake, walk…

He tripped and caught himself just in time. Vision clouded, he stood, unblinking, before tightening his chest, his thighs. Fists balled, he teetered on his feet in silence before leaning to his left, then to his right. Like seaweed at the deepest depths of the abysmal sea, like a tree in a windstorm, like…

He put one foot ahead, and felt something before it. To the right, by a few feet. It was a guess. Tmp, tmp, went his feet. Pay it no mind. No heed. Move along, now. He strode past it.

The shape loomed closer, then drew away from his back. Frozen ants marched down his spine; his arms tingled as they tensed, muscles breathing and holding it in. His legs stopped. He turned his head at the neck, breath cold.

The shape, wide at the top, where it tapered to a head. A cape swirled down below it, touching the ground with placid wisps and opening to show boots, like the curtains of a stage play. Unmoving and relentless, a statue unbothered by the aging of the realm around and heedless to the ticks of the worldly clock that all others obeyed, it— this figure— stood tall, a shadow of shadows.

A tendril flew past, lighting up red hair forged in a fiery furnace that specked a dark, broad face, mouth set shortly above the chin. The skin was dark green, green of forests, green of crops in the summertime. But that green was black now, that green of forests and of crops, the flares having eaten away everything of verdant color.

He straightened his spine, a name on his lips.

"Ganondorf…?"

The figure turned where it stood, still tall, still blank, a cliff standing in the sea. Nostrils flared outwards, eyes opened further in their sockets.

Eyes… Red eyes, with pupils of white and irises of black…

It, Ganondorf, stepped closer, fist revealed from under a maroon cloak, clenched beneath an armored gauntlet. Mist, a dark, lavender mist, gathered above bent knuckles, perspiring from folds in the skin of weathered fingers. Ganondorf said nothing.

He, the visitor, the wanderer, stepped back as Ganondorf's foot pounded again. Closer, closer.

The fist, Ganondorf's fist, hovered there, a radiant, darkened sun suspended by a puppeteer's strings that slammed forward, catching him underneath the collarbone. A whiplash of fire scored itself anew into his skin, his heart, his mouth. A second fist, a clamshell opened for prey, clamped around his neck.

His tongue could do nothing but flop as he was hauled a ways off the ground by the hand at his throat. Mouth opened, hands clenched again and again, loosening only to constrict a second, a third time. He stiffened his neck muscles. Only so far…

One hand reached up to the arm level with his chin, movements fueled by gasoline, joints made from creaky iron and steel. Liquid frothed at the back of his mouth, underneath his tonsil.

One short sentence.

"Snake…"

Ganondorf's arm tightened; as did his hand. Violet embers sparked off his fist, sinking into pale, rough, calloused skin in a display of lavender fireworks, crescents of humming light flashing to and fro like kaleidoscopic fountains of water. Snake tensed, teeth gritted, eyelids flickering.

"…you should be dead."

Ganondorf threw his arm to the side, Snake along with it. Bones split, scabs opened, skin chafed and bruised. He skidded on his side, and when he came to rest his body rested unmoving, chest shallowly pumping air.

Ganondorf was above him suddenly, eyes keen and sharp, red around edges that pulsed blood, irises black, pupils white.

Red.

Red eyes.

Snake's arm moved, muscles springing ahead and leaving thoughts behind. His palm wrapped around the knuckles on Ganondorf's hand. Ganondorf screeched to a halt, momentum gone. Snake kicked forward, snapping something underneath his foot. Ganondorf grunted a half-octave higher and stepped back, fist pulled away.

Snake pushed off the ground, swimmer diving off the board. His own fist, caked in blood, blasted into Ganodorf. The nose underneath cracked. One fist, then another. A punch to the chest, then to the shoulder. There was a pop of a joint, and Ganondorf stilled. He stood, motionless, stiflingly quiet. Snake lowered his arms, unbending his elbows.

The warlock's leg blurred and cracked into the stomach in front of him.

Snake felt his vision blur, his eyesight flare black, the black of the day-less sky around. Warmth pooled down his bare chest and stung, stung like the stings of scorpions, of wasps, sting after sting after sting. His lungs fluttered, birds struggling to stay aloft. Stumbling, falling backwards, he felt his arm snap as something crashed into it. A fist, maybe, or a second kick.

He didn't know, even as he fell forward, even as his vision dimmed, as whatever lights in his eyesight shut off.

The pain laughed, voice rising from watery shadows, cackling from the throat up, raspy and harsh in his ears. _You are nothing. Nothing._

There was a grunt, a sharp smack. Crunching underneath a weight, the thing slammed against the ground.

Snake, on the floor, lying still on his side, fluttered his eyelids open.

Ganondorf, eyes shut, chest compressed as one more breath slumped from exhausted lips, tumbled down. A clear red slash down his chest highlighted the bloodstained armor it pierced through. His cape fell around his body in a discarded, laundry-pile heap.

He rolled over onto his back, body set aflame. Arms and legs spread-eagled, Snake closed his eyes, mouth held crookedly open, breath pushing up and outwards.

A thing, soft, bumped his shoulder. Gently, for all the world as if he were a dog being stroked by an owner, with brows creased. _Tap. Tap. Tap, tap._

His eyes flickered open. He angled his head to the right. The back of his skull scraped against the ground. Bone shuddered, and Snake bit down hard. Blood leaked from his lower lip, staining his gums red.

"Poyo."

The figure doubled, and then merged together.

Something round and… pink… materialized before him, small, toothless mouth open in an O. It bounced upon two red feet, large and rounded like almonds at the top. One vaguely hand-shaped appendage gripped a sword, stained black in the luminescent streaks of color darting about.

A word scored his throat, forced out amongst stuttering, halting breaths.

"Kirby…?"

He moved his arm toward this shape. Is this…?

This was the arm, the arm that Ganondorf crac—

The arm seized, shards of bone scraping each other. Snake yelled skyward, and when his arm fell, his vision fell alongside it. The purple blotched the world, until it seemed to swallow everything in a burst of color.

"Poyo," went Kirby. Snake didn't catch the rest.

He blacked out.

XxX


	3. Respite

XxX

_Respite_

Tap. Tap.

Snake twitched, chest convulsing gently. His eyes moved on their own, darting about underneath spasmodic lids.

Tap.

He rolled over onto his right, away from that tapping. Damn that tapping… Completely unnecessary.

His mind shut down for a moment. Reboot, reboot.

Don't touch or move your left arm, damn it… Don't make this worse, you can't even lift the damn thing, useless; that's what it is, just take a second… Then you can get up and go wherever the hell you want, damn it all, damn it all…

Idiot, you unredeemable idiot… What kind of world-class idiot are you to just fall apart like this…? You stupid, goddamn idiot…

The arm trembled, laughing and screaming all at once, bone creaking, jeering, taunting under its breath, uttering profanities, and pointing fingers his way. The pain joined in, flooding in from his abdomen, his left shoulder, his back.

_Shut up, or I'll do it for you._

The pain quieted. As it left, it chuckled one last time behind his back.

He choked on something warm and froze where he lay. His forehead broiled; there was no sun, no sky, and yet it scalded his mind and tensed his body. His breath came in, out, in, out, until he lost track. Like ants, marching, marching, lost amongst themselves in an armada of living, writing bodies, he lost track.

There was a patter in his ears, like rain. Something gentle tapping away at something hard.

He opened his eyes, and Kirby was there in front of him, pink and bouncy, eyes shining.

Holding his left arm against himself, shaking on his right hand and two knees, Snake rose off his side and sat down. Breath coming in marked breaths, counting away the days, he leaned an elbow on his right leg, bent upright at the knee. Kirby plopped down next to him, on whatever haunches he had.

Neither of them said anything.

The sky opened, a rumble slicing the dim heavens. Purple lightning, rimmed with accents of white fire, like the spears of angry gods…

Would have made more sense if they were red.

Snake whirled around, glancing at the slumped shape angled in random spots that lay behind him. The cape, folded on top. The bloodied chest, stained with a red slash.

Sighing, ribcage expanding and crackling atop thin lungs, he turned back the way he was facing.

_Ganondorf tried to kill me…_

Those eyes, Ganondorf's eyes. They weren't always red.

Were they?

Yeah, maybe they were. But they didn't always look exactly like that before… They were white, around the edges near the eyelids… Right… I remember now. That's right. They _were _white near the eyelids. I just didn't pay too much attention to them earlier… That didn't matter then, 'cause they were just eyes. But now isn't the same as before; it's different now. Of course they're different, because that's what "isn't the same as before" means.

Snake opened his mouth. He imagined himself saying, windpipe corroded from lack of use, "Did Ganondorf do that on purpose?" Kirby would open his mouth and say, "I don't know, but perhaps you could work it out, or maybe we could try to as a team. People always work better in teams," and then continue what he would be doing had Snake not spoken to him in that tone of his. Maybe fiddling with his dirtied sword, rocking back and forth like a pink pumpkin, or staring off a ways. But Snake would exhale deeply and be assured, knowing that—

"Poyo."

Snake closed his mouth.

"Poyo." Kirby got back up onto his ridiculously large feet and gestured wildly at the horizon.

Snake grunted and waved a hand. _Sure._

Kirby, with one last look at Snake's head, the head with the eyes that didn't meet his, the head that bowed and refused to rise higher for more than a minute, walked off into the abyss, atop the ground of obsidian, underneath the streaks of light.

Snake felt his pockets, patting them down faster and faster as each second elapsed. Hands moved like clockwork. Scurrying, drumming, scraping at handholds and plateaus of dirt and caked mud.

They found nothing.

_Damn it, damn it. On top of all this…_

He heaved a sigh.

He didn't have his cigarettes.

Even if he had them, they wouldn't be of much use.

He had lost his lighter, too.

XxX

Kirby walked, and then stopped where he stood. The shape reaching up to the heavens before him was grainy, blurred in an outdated, greyscale photograph taken years ago. Those years were gone, and now photos were rainbows of color, capturing every detail the eye could see without additional aid, but it made sense.

That made sense. Hopefully. Right?

The puffball scratched his head… Maybe "rubbed" would be a better word in that sentence.

This thing, frozen, stationary, was twisted, convoluted at the base and tips, tips that soared off from a singular black column and contorted in on themselves. Where those tips should have sprouted emerald leaves, shining with the light of the early morning and reflecting shattered glass in the dew-drops, there sprouted black brambles dipped in ink.

And the berries. Kirby narrowed his eyes.

Weren't they supposed to be red? Or orange? Maybe yellow, or a mix of all three. Fruity colors, he supposed. Like cherries, or… Strawberries. Those were the droplet-shaped fruits. Yep. Those colors looked natural on fruits that grew on trees.

But black berry… orb… things? They didn't even have stems.

Kirby rubbed his head again.

Hmm.

But it was wood, right? Trees are wood, and so most are easy to burn. Trees burn, and so trees make fire for warmth…

Even though this tree is pitch-black and leaks purple sap that steams.

Wood is wood. And they needed it. So any wood would do just fine.

Ha!

He touched the trunk. Just a slight tap, not enough to disturb any strange birds or strange insects that thrived in the boughs of this strange tree, he assumed, just a small tap to see what kind of wood this was.

It felt cold, like a pillar of ice standing amidst a blizzard, ice crystals flinging themselves about, this way, one way then another way.

He stepped back. Wood was never a forte of his…

Kirby drew his sword. _Shing, _went the metal, gleaming, a crystal from a subterranean cavern sitting noble atop a hilt of… Well, the hilt was made of something strange, probably. He had no clue.

The wood cleaved like warm butter under a knife. He assumed that cutting warm butter felt like cutting wet clay. He had cut wet clay, though, just not warm butter.

Kirby stepped back as the wood fell around him, hissing in reply, lashing out and molding holes in the floor.

Maybe he had cut butter before while helping someone cook… Eh.

The sword sang a few more lines, and then the show was over. Curtains drawn to a standing ovation, the last tendrils of steam lifting up, up, and away, the last of the sap evaporating until it no longer stung to look at.

Before him lay a pile of planks, black, splintered on the inside like normal wood.

Phew. Kirby relaxed.

Kirby closed his eyes. It should work.

When he opened them his sword was gone. He thought of his sword's storage compartment as a kind of teleporting, invisible locker. Just concentrate, and it'll be there.

He bounced up and down. Wow. That sounds a lot cooler than what he had in mind before then.

Kirby waltzed over, arms open wide for the wooden hug. And when he straightened there was a copious amount of timber in those stubby limbs.

He turned around on one smooth foot and nearly tripped on himself. Something caught his face just as he stopped himself, eyes wide, mouth open. Maybe it was worry, or fear, or a combination of—

Ah, well.

He went back the way he came, wood in his grasp, a smile on his face. His walk rose to a jog, a jog that echoed for miles around.

XxX

Snake rubbed his forehead again. He had lost count. His fingers, moving, twitching, writhing as serpents, unable to stay still. Scratch whatever uneven ground they could find, crack the knuckles, rub together, tap. Rinse and repeat. Scratch, crack—

_Plop._

Snake turned around.

A jarring thud spread through his chest, heat through coils, electricity through wires. Splinters settled in his mouth and sliced his tongue. Something clunked heavily on top of his legs.

He winced, rolled his tongue to the left. He coughed and spat.

A globule of bloodied saliva clumped at Kirby's feet.

Kirby looked up.

Snake shrugged his shoulders. He glanced down at his cross-legged lap, the smell of burnt sap and musty seasonings catching in his nostrils. A plank of blackened wood met his eyes. It felt rough, riddled with craters and mountains, jagged monoliths of wood piercing like spikes.

If it had been burnt before it would have dissolved a long time ago…

Kirby bustled about, urgently, meteors falling above his head, lightning strikes splitting howling winds and growling cloud banks of gray. One log, then the next. A marble, smooth, wide as an orange, caught Kirby, hooked him in. Kirby bent over and poked it. It popped, a proverbial blister.

Then the pile was on fire.

A yelp, childish. Kirby bounded back, landing on his rump. His eyes gleamed purple from the flames, flying in every direction, popping like firecrackers. Mauve, then orchid purple, then lavender, then violet, then lilac. A flicker of white warmth snagged on an exterior log, and there it fluttered, flagging in the breeze, a white cloth in a festival of jolting, jumping monochromatic color.

Both scooted closer, Kirby dragging himself along, inch by inch, Snake rising off the ground before settling again. He held out his hands, palms smiling and shivering at once.

_Snrk. _

Snake snapped to. He peeked to his right.

Kirby had his eyes shut. A bulb of snot shimmied out of his mouth and inflated bit by bit. Snake reached over with one tempted finger when the bubble shrank. Snake's arm shifted back.

He turned back to the flames and peered in. They flickered, dancing, curling like ribbons. No smoke, no wind to arc into his face, under his eyelashes where they could tickle like minuscule sprites, or faeries.

Snake snorted, and his ribs snarled.

His arms dropped, palms closing, flowers shutting in under faceless moonlight. So did his head, his neck. And eyelids.

He was asleep soon after.

XxX


	4. Conclave

XxX

_Conclave_

Petals. Everywhere, floating, clouds of flowering snow, adrift on hushed, unseen wings, alighting on the tops of rounded gravestones. Fields of flowers, blooming under the orange sun, sat still under oak trees with boughs of green muted with gray. They called those flowers "stars-of-Bethlehem", for the nameless, for those who have no past, future, present. Soldiers, dogs of war.

Snake knelt, the breeze taking whatever voice he had left. A gust tickled his face, his burns on his left cheek.

"This is good, isn't it?"

Snake stayed, motionless. The man leaning against the gravestone beside him let out a breath. It was small, unnoticed among the light whistle of wind above. His chest stilled.

Snake picked the cigar up from the ground, brushed off the dirt.

The sky had faded to a rosy pink that stunned the world into silence, staining the clouds red, dwindling into a rosy pink.

He stubbed the cigar. It hissed; smoke curled around his fingers, underneath his open hand.

Dancing in circles, pirouetting, twirling, hopping on feet made of feathers, a petal spiraled atop his head. It fell, lazily, zigzagging its way down into his outstretched left hand. In his palm.

Snake closed his fingers over it.

A moment elapsed.

He opened his fingers.

One single petal of white, bleached, sucked dry. A warm gust rose to meet him.

The warm gust parted. The heat haze cleared.

Embedded in the petal was a red eye, iris black, pupil white. It blinked, lazy as a summer day, and the world around him scattered into panels of meaningless color. They faded to grey, then to black.

One sentence echoed as everything else paled.

"This world would be better off… without Snakes."

XxX

Pain. Pain blaring like a siren to a complex on fire, screeching down the hall, screaming his name from the tops of mountain peaks, the sides of mountain slopes. Pain crushing his mind, pain blurring everything until nothing made sense, until things looked upside-down, inside-out. Hissing, crying, spitting, bellowing, gushing, rearing and slashing at empty air.

Consciousness slapped him upside the face, jolting his eyes open, rattling his split cheek. Warmth dribbled down his chin. Blood.

_Better off…_

The ground was fuzzy. Still cold, but numb. Numb like ice, maybe. Or fire. Snake couldn't tell. The temperature difference… Didn't matter, really… At all…

_Without Snakes…_

He was on his side, frozen, glued to the spot. His arms… They wouldn't move. They yelled, both rebellious children, both hostile creatures, both statues in bedrock.

His left side burned. He was aflame, doused in gasoline and set to light with a match. Snake's left arm… It was silent. With nothing behind it. It wouldn't respond, and then it said something, and then it hurt to hell, and it barely slid off the floor, and it hurt… It hurt, _it hurt._ Hell… hurt… Damn it…

His ribs… They screamed alongside the arms, all venom, all poison, _look at us, pay attention to us, we're broken and you need to help us as soon as possible and we won't stop bugging you until you do, c'mon now, it's not that hard, _sucking their thumbs and crying out in the darkened, dampened hush, creaking, one false move and they could all snap, so stop it, stop it, now.

Get it together, breathe, clench your teeth and roll onto your stomach… Your back doesn't care anymore; neither does your left shoulder-blade, just keep at it. Go, go, _go, forget everything and—_

Snake pushed off and rolled. He made it halfway before he heaved, only hacking up saliva and cleared blood in a mixed gob that flew off his tongue. It smacked wetly beside his head.

He froze again.

_Move, _he screamed, his mind screamed, again and again. His body quivered, a caterpillar in a cocoon, a turtle in a shell rocking, rocking, rocking, never moving more than a centimeter anywhere, anywhere but here where he lay frozen. _Move, move, move… _

A hand, on his left shoulder. Light, touching like feathers, a sweep of thin, crisp paper. The scream in his arms died out. A level voice, then a whisper, then a faint moan, swept like dust under the rug, down, down.

His chest followed, griping into the depths, fading, falling downhill.

_And stay there._

Snake's lips moved. He said, he maneuvered his tongue to say something. Nothing. Just a whimper. Like a puppy, kicked and punched, why the hell are you whispering, damn it, shut up, stop, get off the floor.

An arm moved. It stopped.

Then the hand was suddenly there again, alighting on his arm in a still peace.

"Rest, Snake. Just rest." It was light, as the hand before it, as the wind before, meaning the wind in his dream, and the touch of the petal, and then the other voice… It was his father and then there was the eye on the petal and where was Kirby, shit—

He twitched; his spine roared. _Stop, stop, stop stop…_

"Rest. No need to worry, for now. Just, rest."

Then the hand moved over his bare skin, it was brushing his cuts, and then it was moving on and on. The arrow wound trembled under its scab, complaining, _get this off of me, _and then it quieted, too.

When the voice said, "Rest" in that soft, down-feathered way, again, then again, Snake stilled. Chest settled, arms lay flat.

He closed his eyes and rested.

XxX

A voice. Like the feather.

"Kirby, was he like this when you found him?"

"Poyo."

"I can't understand you like that, not unless you make gestures." A pause. "Like that. Makes it easier for me."

"Poyo."

"Oh, is that charcoal? I'm assuming you know how to write our common language, then. Could you use that to write, possibly?"

_Scritch, scratch. _Rubbing, then more writing.

"'Ganondorf was trying to… kill him.' And then… 'I stopped Ganondorf and saved him.'" A sigh, long and deep. More scratching. "'He was probably like that before, because usually Snake has no problem against a person like Ganon. I didn't see him any earlier.' Yes, I know. Everyone else knows, too. Snake is someone not to be trifled with. But…"

"Poyo." There were brow creases in that voice, small, childish. "Poyo." Scratch, scratch, scratch.

"I can't heal him entirely. I learned a lot, surely, but that won't be enough. It'll get him by." The voice, a "she", replied, monotone, "Just for the moment, while we find him prolonged care. If we can."

"Don't need it." His own voice rasped out, breaking through rust. "I'm fine."

He blinked, everything fuzzy, distorted through warped, tinted glass. Black sky, oily rainbow streaks, great.

His neck could move. He turned his head. Right, left, right, left. It focused on right.

Kirby sat next to a slim figure, tall, hooded, kneeling besides him. It was unmoving, a still lake in a storm, a stone in a noiseless field. It, she, this thing… Who?

The figure revolved to face him.

He blinked. It had taken off its hood.

Long auburn hair tumbled out after it, tied in a ponytail. Bangs tied up in two other streams atop the temples of a thin, pale façade, shining like ice. One trailed over a blue eye, wide under a trim eyebrow; the other over cold metal. Grated, with slits, clamped to the head with bands of leather under the hair, under the pointed ears, shielding half the face and stopping at the bridge of the nose. The metal was a mask, glinting harshly, discordant astride the pearl-smooth skin, the warmth of the hair.

She. It was a she.

The voice… The half-visible face… The melting touch… It clicked.

"Queens don't belong in a place like this," Snake said, a chuckle withering on parched lips.

Zelda laughed, a melody in the empty rests, empty harmonies. "I'm not entirely a queen. A part of me isn't appealed by that prospect of court life. But some do say it suits me."

"Would you agree?"

"Ha!" Zelda curled her lip upwards. "No. Not at all. My father could do that job for me just fine."

Snake moved to sit up. Again, the touch, docile as falling snow, gently sweeping against his skin. It was cold, but hot. Kind of warm… "You shouldn't even be alive right now. The healing helped, I assume… I hope it carries you well, until we can—"

"Yeah, I heard. I was awake."

"Mm. Sleeping is good for the soul. You should have stayed asleep. Better for everybody."

Snake fixed her a glare. "How so?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You'll slow everyone down."

He half-laughed, half-gagged. "I guess."

"This is serious. You really should not be moving right at this moment. Maybe in a few hours or so, we'll get going."

"'We?' I don't seem to remember saying you were coming with us." His mouth sucked in lightly. _Idiot. Like you needed to say that._

Without missing a beat, Zelda said, "The more the merrier, as you humans say. Yes?"

"Yeah, that's it. And you're not?"

"Not what?"

"Human."

"Not all the way through. At least, I assume. There's some human in all of us, maybe."

"Is that a compliment? Or an insult?"

She looked off, wringing her hands, lacing the grooves between her fingers together, twisting the black gloves over one another. "Maybe both. Just a statement."

Zelda glanced at Kirby. He was staring at the floor, brows furrowed, then relaxing, then furrowed. He sighed, mouth puffing open, then inhaled. Exhale, inhale. _Fwoosh._

Snake nodded to himself. "You coming?"

Zelda jolted, head shooting upwards. Her hands separated and clutched themselves at her sides. The face under the mask shook; the visible cheek grew a pastel grey sheen. She bit her lip and shuddered her ponytail. Eyes glassy, frozen in crystal shards, falling, clinking as they fell, down, into darkness, into the depths of nothing, into—

"Zelda!"

"Huh! Oh, yes, yes. Forgive me. My mind walks many paths; it's a surprise to see it return ever so often." She shook her head, a lion's mane a-whirl around her, hood bouncing along her neck. An indent, a slight incline, a child of a valley, slid under her bottom lip. She said nothing.

Snake gesticulated to the side of his face. Left. The tingling there… Were those his own burns… Burns that should have followed him to the grave…?

He shook his own head.

"What's with the mask?" The question slipped down the slope of his tongue.

Zelda nearly jumped to her feet. Still, she hopped, a rabbit with a metal face, the other half in shadow. "That's one thing I won't tell. Not yet." Hurriedly, a rabbit with a pocket-watch, she said, voice bounding to and fro, "Kirby. We're going."

Kirby hopped to. Like a rabbit.

Snake nearly giggled.

Zelda stared at him. _This is your glare; I'm giving it back. _

Kirby took a part of it. _Your glares are terribly inconsiderate, anyway. Just a taste of your own medicine. It's bitter, too. Just the way you like it._

Teeth clamped together.

He had never "giggled", ever. The hell…?

Snake had laughed before, maybe snorted, maybe choked on whatever was in his mouth. The memories were muddled, out of focus, dim lampposts, dim headlights in the fog. Laughing…? What? When did he…

Zelda called his name. "We're all shaken up, I can tell."

Snake stayed silent, lips locked, the imaginary key down some imaginary hole. This time he didn't giggle.

It wasn't really funny, either.

Kirby sprang up next to Zelda, ramming her dress in short taps with his round pink… forehead. A goddamn baby billy goat…

And they walked.

XxX


	5. Flight

XxX

_Flight_

Flexing his left arm, Snake said, "Where are you… we… headed?"

Without turning to look back, Zelda answered, back high, steps even and paced one after the other, one-two, one-two, "To get you medical treatment. And that's something you need desperately."

"Your magic spell or whatever was enough."

"Also, there's another reason." Zelda kept her voice monotone. "There's someone else you need to meet. Although… You've met this entity before."

Snake caught up to her, matching her pace, one-two, one-two. "So, he's friendly."

"Last I checked."

"Which was?"

"Several weeks ago."

He made a sort of grunt. "How the hell are you even supposed to keep time here?"

Zelda flicked her head forward. Lights, purple, red, orange, black and oily, caught on her mask and flagged where they stood, waving. "Over there."

A line, silver with stars, clusters of lustrous suns, clouded into the black, the dark, accenting the zenith of this hollow sky, flashing purple amidst white light.

"That's the horizon line. It is impossible to see at what is considered to be night here. Time-keeping devices are useless. Clocks and pocket-watches freeze, sun dials have no sun to gauge, and the sand in hourglasses refuses to flow down no matter how you try to persuade it. Only that line will tell between night and day. Noon, midnight, morning, afternoon. There's no distinctive feature to separate this time of 'daylight' clearly, even though days themselves are easier to count." Zelda paused. "It wouldn't really matter, as time seems like the one thing you don't have to worry about here."

Snake followed it as it stretched on, eyes squinting. It wasn't the sun, it wasn't a solar eclipse, but he squinted anyway. "What's at the end?"

Zelda looked at him. "What?"

"Over at that line. What's over there?"

She bit her lip. Bad habit. Stop doing that, you'll ruin your mouth. "His palace."

"Who?"

"I think you know," Zelda said simply.

Suddenly, his mind screamed, a banshee lost in a maelstrom of wind. The punches, the iron fist, the bandages wrapped on top of themselves, the white cloak with holes like craters. He, it, he… It… He? He.

_You done yet?_

_ No. Not yet._

Whip, down his chest. Again, then again.

Snake glanced down in a flash. A scar, jagged, a thunderbolt of red, down his chest from his left shoulder to his right hip. He touched it, careful, for fear it could snap at him, jeering, frothing yellowed foam…

Pillars, broken, toppled. A red sky. Dusky clouds, a throne of marble.

_You may call me—_

"Zero-Two?"

"You know him?" The question was collected, tied in a bundle with an expert hand.

Snake shivered. It wasn't cold, even though he wore nothing but his own skin above his belt buckle. Maybe it _was_ cold. Sensations of chilling hoarfrost, of rime, of ice under overhangs, under tree branches and the undersides of shriveled, gasping leaves, under awnings… None of that here. "No. Just… met him. Briefly."

"Isn't that the same?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe," Zelda repeated to herself, mouthing long after the words had gone silent.

Zelda skidded to a stop. Snake doubled back; he had walked right past her.

She rasped, "Were you…?" She didn't finish. The half of her face that was visible paled, shaking, tremors quivering the skin, the fine cheekbones. "Did he…?"

He nodded. He knew.

Zelda tightened her left hand. A harsh sound, metal upon metal, worn and flaky with time, jarred Snake.

He said nothing.

At his side, Zelda said, "Then, it's true. I've been here for Din knows how long, but I was starting to hope that maybe… Maybe someone made it out of this…"

"What?"

"You were the last one left, Snake. Then he brought you here, to Dark Star, and now—"

"Dark… what? Isn't this… Subspace?"

"In a way." Zelda's feet carried her forward without a thought. Walk, walk, walk. "When Zero came here, we didn't know what to expect. We didn't expect anything. We were just living, talking, training for the upcoming tournaments. Then, he was there, and I was here, my one eye blinded, my heart nearly torn in half. I couldn't find a single soul I knew in this… place." She halted her speech halfway, lips shut. "Then…Then he came, and…" Zelda shook her head. Another bad habit; stop, stop. "We'll figure it out. Don't obsess over what happened before."

"You were saying something about Dark Star…?"

"Subspace reborn, swallower of worlds, once the domain of the otherworldly Tabuu and his army of Shadow Bugs. We are in Subspace. Just not exactly like you're used to seeing it. Call it Dark Star. Because that's what it is. This is Zero's domain now."

"What happened to the Hands?"

The princess— queen— choked on something invisible. "They're gone. Zero…"

"He did this? But—"

"But why? Why…?!" Zelda snarled and gripped the sides of her sleeves. "Damnable villains like him don't need a reason! Suffering is all they can think of, and that's all they need! Their bedtime stories are tales of murder; their favorite reports are reports on torture, of the burning of bodies, the mutilation of captured prisoners! And they're fine with it. That's how they live their lives, and no reason will redeem the crimes they commit."

Snake looked down at his feet. So many things pushed his mouth open, hydraulics working double steel doors from the frozen hinges out.

_We have no past, no future. And even if we did, it wouldn't truly be ours! _

Memories… What could he say?

He went with a question. "Subspace reborn… Is there a chance we could see Tabuu and his goons again? Duon, Galleom…?"

"I don't want to think about it," was Zelda's instant answer. She continued walking, one-two, one-two. "There's always a chance, if that's what you're wondering."

Kirby tugged at Zelda's robe. Tugged. Not tapped…

_Boom. _The shockwave crunched a charred skeleton tree next to them, the "black berries" popping open like balls of confetti into a party of ghosts at a banquet with zombies, with—

And suddenly, he was there. Whip at the ready, polygonal, blood-spattered wings spread behind him in a fan, robe trailing behind and dragging on the floor, a ceremonial robe made for the undead.

Zero.

Zelda had withdrawn her sword from underneath her black coat. It clanged, and that clang seemed to stretch and stretch until it snapped, the sound curling in on itself. "You…"

"Yes. Me. I do believe you humans would call this being 'jinxed'. Yes? Yes, that must be it." Zero cracked his whip, and Zelda took a step back, a single ice-blue eye wide in a shallow socket. "I heard that. All of it. Now, why aren't you like the others?"

"That's a secret I'll take to my grave."

Zero snapped his fingers. The fingernails clacked against each other, the flesh scraping in a sound like scissors. "Which won't be long from now, unfortunately for me. I'll never know." His face grew long. "Time is short. I have someone to—"

His eyes met Kirby, pink, bouncy, sword pulled from a floating, ethereal locker, held at the ready. The puffball met his gaze, unfaltering, eyelids held open. "The person I'm looking for is here with you," said Zero, never once drawing his eyes away. "What a surprise. Well, nevertheless, my time is short. I figured I'd stop by to briefly make contact, but now I've located all three of you. There's no rush."

Kirby said nothing. Neither did anyone else.

"But, I'll leave a present, I think. It's worth it, the time I spent tracking you three down. Welcome to Dark Star, Snake. You'll find it very… educational."

_Boom. Boom._

The ground cleaved beneath where Zero hovered, humanoid, whip bent like a lizard's resting whip-tail. He moved his left arm over his chest, and he was gone. Robe, whip, wings, and all.

The thin chasm grew into a canyon, yawning at the dusky void above with open jaws, extending into the white of the horizon line. Flakes of the ground broke, shattering and tumbling into the abyss as a single wispy hand rose above them. The thickened hand was large, taller than Snake, Zelda, or Kirby, intent on ripping the heavens down from the sky. It anchored onto the precipice, and whatever was below it followed, slowly dragged to the surface, inch by inch, muscle by muscle. A bellow, deep underneath the floor, recoiled and flung itself in every direction.

Zelda moved backwards, metal gauntlet underneath the sleeve tightened around a sword hilt, each individual claw luminous, slicing razors that left rents in the air as they fidgeted around the grip.

A metal gauntlet…?

"I don't have a right arm, Snake. So I have a metal glove. Stop looking at it."

And the thing in the abyss launched itself upwards, landing on two hunched legs, two arms, thick like tree trunks, bent over at the back, supporting meaty hands swinging to and fro like bear paws with nothing to do. Amethyst rockets droned where they rested in pods suspended above bulked, rounded shoulders. Two eyes, red and glistening, stared out from behind a smoky mouthplate that covered its snout. It was all black, seemingly made of shadows, shadows that could touch, sense, move… Kill.

It roared, a king of beasts, and that roar seemed to move time backwards, until all of them were standing in the midst of a desert, watching as this behemoth towered above the smoking sands and rotting cliffs, facing three swordsmen.

"I had just heard about what the others did to defeat Galleom, but we weren't there." Zelda laughed to herself suddenly. "We will have to improvise."

What…?

"This should do it," Zelda whispered, like she was speaking to herself. Her gauntlet slid out from her sleeve, shining, a knight ready for war.

In her open metallic palm burst a brilliant flame. Born from nothing.

The fire seemed to enlarge tenfold as it flew from her arm, leaving a prismatic trail of heated color behind, a comet in orbit around a celestial body. It hummed, and as Galleom raised an unlit arm up, the orb of flame sank into the beast's chest.

A moment later it exploded. Individual shards of darkness, flickering like lost data on a computer screen, spread outwards, propelled on a wave of superheated air. Galleom staggered as if in reply to a punch, a hole in his impenetrable chest, ragged at the rims where a purple ichor dripped from sinewy veins of shadow.

The hand came down, a colossal guillotine made to behead gods belting upon the smooth earth. A clenched fist slammed, and the ground of obsidian, of frigid, hard substance bucked underneath, caving into the depths.

Snake rolled to the right as Galleom withdrew his fist. He slowed into a crouch and rose.

Galleom's knuckles, the size of lampposts, caught Snake in the chest. The wind pushed itself out of his gaping mouth, his stiff jaws. His neck balked, jerking his head back. All noise crumbled to a low hum, the whine of his own pumping blood, his own immobile lungs drowning out all else.

His shoulder met the ground a moment later and skidded along. Momentum ceased, and Snake remained where he lay.

Zelda materialized to Galleom's left. Already, her arm was in front of her.

A second orb appeared in Zelda's palm. It flew, energy in its stride, energy in its blood, and melted into the grooves of Gelleom's helm. The humanoid tank swatted at its head, hitting unseen insects. Its body revolved on smooth bearings to face this maker of hornets, tamer of locusts, this… woman, clad in black, one hand extended. With claws of steel, shimmering in a heat haze of red.

Those claws tightened, and Galleom's head burst into nothing, the explosion like firecrackers overhead.

The rest of its bulk tailed after it, dissolving first from the collarbone down to the circular, ball-bearing waist, then to the flat-soled feet. Then, into the polished, marble-textured floor.

A grove of trees to the right seemed to sigh. The spectral dust that was once the essence of a Subspace tank expired under the fading horizon line.

Kirby peeked out from behind a trunk. His mouth widened until it was as wide around as a pomegranate.

Where was Galleom?

Kirby tagged along as Zelda stepped closer, one-two, one-two. She bowed over Snake, fingers crossed, teeth boring at gums. By the goddesses, stop doing that…

With fingers like small tufts of wind, she rolled him over onto his back. Already, her fingers were soaked in blood, blood that wasn't hers. Blood that should have stayed where it was, circulating through veins and arteries, going about daily tasks.

Blood that wept from an open whip-slash down his chest, blood that trickled down his chin and out of his nostrils, blood that poured out of his left shoulder, his lower back.

_Heal, _she thought, hand extended.

Nothing happened.

Zelda slumped to the ground, a jackhammer chiseling at her skull. Just a little more energy; you don't need much else… So close, and all you need is a little pick-me-up to get him back on his feet so we can permanently treat him. In the name of Din, please…

She bit down harder. Mouthing a silent prayer, she slid Snake alongside her. As she stood, she lifted him over her shoulder. She could feel the sticky warmth down underneath, all the way to the bone.

Kirby looked up at her, one eyebrow raised.

Would he know?

Know what?

Zelda rattled her head. "I bet Zero never saw that coming," she muttered, teeth still gritted and grasping at wet skin. The being at her side, that pink… person… merely bobbed along.

She ducked underneath a pallid branch leaking eerie purple sap that steamed in the cool dusk. Or, whatever.

They walked, both noiseless, as Zelda led the way.

XxX


	6. Elegy

XxX

_Elegy_

Somewhere later, Zelda and Kirby's walk grew to a run. _Tmp, tmp, tmp, _the sounds of rapid-fire stepping, stepping that increased to a running.

Kirby kept pace with her, sword tucked away somewhere.

"We should have helped…"

"Poyo?" Kirby's question was thin, laced with shallow oxygen. He kept his oversized legs… feet… going.

"If I had stopped it before… If only…"

Kirby jogged now; he panted through a confined quiet.

"I missed, Kirby. I missed Galleom's head the first time, and if I hadn't missed, then, then…" Zelda tripped over her left foot, and the robe shielding the foot stiffened in callous reply. "I thought I had my powers down when I came here. I practiced and practiced, and I thought…" She lost breath then, and had to inhale. Her ribcage expanded as her arms swung alongside the rhythm of her legs, go, go, you don't have time to think about it. "I thought I had everything in control. The fire, the teleporting, the—"

Zelda tripped again; her momentum carried her airborne over a root, tangled in the ground in spirals and loops, peeking through to the surface, the sharpened tip facing the horizon line. She was thrown under an overhanging branch, which posed for the camera in a midair strike, rearing at the sky.

She landed facedown, a grunt in her mouth, and Snake tumbled off her shoulder. He came to rest at a tree stump later.

She got to her hands and knees, coughing up saliva.

Kirby was suddenly beside her, leaning over. He placed a hand on Zelda's arm and held it tight.

Zelda coughed some more, each hack sounding more nasal, bringing up more vitreous liquid. Then, she crawled over and with shaking pulls, a lonesome creature in a merciless winter blizzard, was at Snake's side, heart in her mouth.

Around the slash down his chest pulsed a black starburst, the arms spreading in gaunt lines into his skin and farther into his bones, his muscles. Snake winced to himself, in his dreams and in his nightmares, hands clenching then loosening as the fingers relaxed, curling dry. His cheeks and mouth, sallow and white, seemed too thin, too strained.

She lifted an eyelid.

The iris…

Was it… black?

Zelda felt pressure in her cheeks. Warm liquid pooled in her mouth, leaking from a bit lip. "I had no idea," she breathed. "It… it wasn't this bad, was it?"

Kirby shrugged. His eyes were blank.

If only he could talk, if only, if—

_Why don't you become the first to suffer with me? Then perhaps you won't be so lonely when everyone else suffers with us, hmm?_

"Shut up!" Zelda screamed, a raw howl that tore her throat and windpipe into shreds. "Shut up, shut up, shut up…" Her screams died out. "Shut… up…"

She pounded her knuckles into a tree trunk. "Zero…"

"Suffering is the one thing he knows best."

Zelda whirled, the growl, animal and unaccustomed to mortal language, chafing her eardrums. "Wh—"

And Lucario was there, blue and black fur illuminated in a pale sheen, paws moving about in reticence; no clicking, no tapping, no tugging. They glowed, bathed in a sapphire aura, warm like fires on glacial nights where stars are distant reveries, where people gather to talk, befriend—

_I wanted to show you something new._ _You all should see what this reality can do for the soul… Break it into little pieces, destroy every shard of dignity it has, or torture it until the end of time. Maybe you should—_

Zelda punched the tree again. Her metal hand screeched.

Lucario said, "What are you doing here? Didn't you want to kill Zero…? And yet, here you are, burdened by yet another living soul."

"Side trip," she muttered down at the floor.

Lucario nearly glided over. One paw over Snake, he whispered under his breath, the aura around his palm widening until it bathed them both in something like blue fire. Zelda peered through. The bleeding stopped. Snake's breathing steadied.

"I'm not a doctor," said Lucario, "but I suppose I could fill in." He leaned over and threw Snake over his own shoulder, where the mercenary's body jolted once before settling, curled idly over Lucario's back. "Come with me."

He darted between prickly bushes, dark foliage that seemed to draw back their vines and branches in respectful serenity as Lucario passed by.

Zelda followed, dragging Kirby by the stubby, fingerless hand behind her as she ran behind Lucario into the undergrowth.

XxX

As Zelda caught up to the Pokémon, she said, "Anything changed? Did you find anything since the last we met?"

"If I remember correctly, the last we met was at least three days ago. I am still no good at telling time here. So, no, I did not find anything new. And besides, there are a lot of things I have failed to tell you."

"'Failed to'? Or, 'am not willing to…?"

He gave a half-splutter, half-cackle. "Perhaps both. And I take it you haven't found anything new, either, or else Zero-Two, bane of all that is good, would already be scattered as dust into the wind, eh? Or, would you even be brave enough to try? Try to… dethrone him, I mean?"

Zelda felt her eyelids narrow in on themselves. "I'd do well regardless."

"You're avoiding the question." Lucario stopped in his tracks. "But I wouldn't blame you if you backed out. Zero is… a devastating adversary."

"Isn't that what he wants? For me to give up, lose everything?"

"Haven't you already?"

Zelda was silent.

"No," she said after a while. "Not yet."

Lucario snorted, and as a jackal it sounded harsh, grating. "You do well to keep that up." He held an unoccupied arm out to a tree, caressing the bark as one might stroke hair.

The tree seemed to cleave down the middle. Zelda partly expected the tree to explode; it was frothing at the tips of the branches, and the orbs suspended as berries seemed to inflate, filling with some eccentric substance. As the halves fell, steam curled and flowed like liquid downward, a clean, watery steam that beckoned into an abandoned factory, cluttered with lost contraptions of bronze and steel, overtaken by legions of scrap metal.

From the base of the cleaved tree rose a rectangular obelisk, black, the edges flashing silver. Spirals and jagged patterns of light coursed through the stone, outlined with prismatic trails that gleamed in every color, seamlessly turning red to blue, green to white, following a sloping rhythm. A symbol, a letter that harkened back to an ancient language, blazed in those same polychromatic lines.

The tree halves around it dissolved into powder.

"The tree'll regrow," Lucario said simply. "Don't bother wondering how." He pressed a paw to the symbol, and the symbol disappeared, faded away from top to bottom. So did the door.

An entrance that spilled into darkness gestured to them.

Lucario stepped over the threshold, his entire body already submerged in an inky-black night.

Zelda waited, Kirby holding onto the fringes of her robe as he stared, his other hand grasping at empty air. Maybe, he was looking for his sword?

She grasped Kirby by the hand once again, siblings in a crowded park, the larger one leading the smaller into places unknown.

This time, Kirby followed willingly.

Darkness was all Zelda could see. Then, a torch floating in the void nearby breathed with a building _fwoomp,_ and purple fire gushed over the edge, billowing over a cauldron. The reflection bounced against a black wall, made of murky crystal, free of jagged edges and coarse bumps.

There was a second _fwoomp, _then a third.

Torches were aligned in even measurements along the crystalline walls, outlining cramped hallways with low ceilings and the frames of rigid doors, all shining with similar runes as before.

Zelda looked back, fleetingly, eyes begging for flowing light and casting aside the cramped flames. The door behind had closed, and the purple torchlight reflected behind her, flinging her shadow all over.

A silhouette ahead of her growled, "It'll open if you want. But I have a feeling you want something else than that."

"How did you know?" Zelda grumbled softly.

If Lucario heard, he didn't reply.

There was a plodding cascade of rumbles, low like the snores of large bears curled in their winter dens. Then, another doorway seemed to appear in front of her like the aperture before, exuding a cool pneumatic swirl of fog.

She stepped through and stopped behind Lucario. Once the fog cleared, she peered about, no longer holding Kirby.

Kirby marched to her side.

It was a small, square room, reminiscent of a cabin in the forest, the untamed wilds. The bed was covered by a white sheet. It looked unused, and the blankets were unruffled. A pillow leaned in a slanted arc at the head of the mattress, propped up against the plain black headboard. A bulb, shimmering in every shade of the rainbow, sat on a stone dresser nearby.

And there was a torch on the wall, purple like the others outside in the hallway. It might have been a trick of the eyes, but it seemed to shine with a second layer of gentle sparks, an outer shell of soft-baked light.

Zelda shivered. But not from the cold. It felt good, the heat, warming her muscles, her bones. "This place has changed from the last time I saw it." She chucked. "And I still don't know how you got all this. Even so, I like it."

"You think?" With measured movements, a slight bend of the back and arm, Lucario set Snake on the bed, shuttered eyes facing the crystal ceiling. As he did so, the jackal replied, "I wanted to make myself as comfortable as possible. We'll be here for a long while, so I thought it would be nice to renovate…" His words smothered themselves out.

Zelda took off her robe and folded it up. She pulled up an ottoman nearby and sat down, the strings that held her up on her feet torn and shredded. The folded robe plopped down next to her. Kirby sat next to the pile, sighing, wide feet shaking slightly, just enough to be noticeable.

The cushion's texture was firm, yet fluffy, just like her bed at the mansion, where, on a regular day, with wind whisking through the building and the orchard outside, she would—

Zelda pinched the bridge of her nose. _Don't think about that._

"I would offer you tea or a drink of some kind, but you don't need it," Lucario said. "And I don't even have any."

Zelda felt a growl build in her throat.

"But, not in the way you think." Lucario let his gaze wander, and it examined the room, the torch, the lamp. It settled straight on Zelda, then drifted onto Kirby, flotsam lost in a turbulent storm at sea. It finally alighted on a window, open to the putrid, cool air. "Here, the need for food and drink abandons all, but the desire doesn't. We remain tired, we remain sleep-deprived, we remain dirty and covered in filth, but you will find no one here fighting over nutrients of any kind. At least, not in a desperate sort of way. Somehow, we don't need it. I suppose we could eat something if we wanted to savor the taste..."

"If Zero wanted us to suffer, do you think that he should have kept that need for sustenance…?"

"We're suffering either way, I think. Whether we're hungry or not." A shallow, toothy smile broke Lucario's canine muzzle. "Perhaps you could think of it as a kind of… limbo."

"Maybe." Zelda looked down at herself. "But we're alive."

"No one I know would call this living." He studied the man lying on his bed, arms akimbo, fingers flopping off the sides of the covers. Snake's chest trembled as it rose and fell, his chest changing colors until it resembled a black tree, like the ones outside. "Except, maybe—"

Wait…

Lucario rushed over to the bedside. The skin covering Snake's ribcage throbbed with mottled veins, pumping ink all around. His fingernails were already blackened, seeming as if they had been dipped in soot.

Without turning to face Zelda, he asked, "Are his eyes red?"

"Yes."

Something in Lucario's mouth chafed. Zelda heard it: the bones, the teeth screeching, chipping away at one another in tests of strength. He gestured, rushed as if late for an urgent meeting. "There's a drawer. Middle one."

Zelda followed his paw. It pointed to the dresser with the bulbous lamp, the one light fixation that flashed purple. Din's fire, why is there so much purple and black…

"And what's in the drawer?" Zelda's mouth asked, speaking before her brain proper had the words.

"Just look."

The drawer slid open with nary a whimper, a whisper, a vocalized complaint. Inside, scattered amongst empty vials and metal measuring spoons, lay a single strip of leather, thick like tree bark.

"And why would you need this?"

"Don't bother asking." He leveled his stare at Zelda, who hunched over the cabinet, sharp metallic face coated in light. She didn't meet Lucario's eyes. Couldn't. "Why didn't you tell me any earlier? These wounds, these whip-marks… Why hadn't I seen it? Zero…"

Zelda peeked upwards to the bed, where Lucario had one paw, humming with an azure glow, over Snake's heart. Her stomach climbed to her throat. "What are you…?"

"Just bring it here."

Something clicked inside her head. "Why would you wake him up for this? Wouldn't it be better if he stayed unconscious?"

"He'll stay unconscious, all right. The pain, however…"

She swallowed. A moment later, the leather was in her hand, being transferred over to Lucario's palm.

He slapped Snake on his good cheek, his right cheek, the one that wasn't scabbed over. It was small, just enough to wake him up.

Snake's eyes flickered open. A specter of a whisper lingered in his ears; it was the pain, sneering in the back of the crowd. His eyes flickered underneath faulty eyelids, and focused on the Pokémon's angular face, the pointed vertical ears, above him. A finger on his left hand twitched, and his left arm followed. It hurt. "Lucario…?"

Lucario slid the leather in between Snake's lips. "Bite down hard," was all he said.

Snake obliged.

Then, there was pain.

Pain. Pain, pain.

Pain.

He felt a touch on his chest, on the wounds, and suddenly, they hurt again, hurt like hell, and maybe now Snake knew what hell felt like, and they hurt, God damn it, shit, damn it all... They burned, they sizzled like boiling water, they screamed under the touch of acid, lava. His back arched, his neck arched, his head locked. Muscles tensed, knees bent up at a ceiling so blurry it looked like water, and he couldn't move. Screams, bellows built in his mouth; only the leather strip, one strip, between his teeth kept them in place when all else was already thawing like melted ice, too far gone to be of any help, the pain laughing as it trickled into his bones, skin, tendons, bit by bit as they savored every moment. Still, they, the screams and bellows, snuck out, whines, sobs and hidden roars, shrieks. Teeth dug into his body, but there weren't any teeth anywhere, it just hurt everywhere, shit. He was cold, cold enough to get frostbite, and then he was on fire, magma in his veins and arteries. Pain, pain everywhere, doing everything at once, _you are nothing now, just one more soul to grieve, suffer on this lonely plane, this_—

His right fist clenched, and it registered somewhere, somewhere up higher. It registered as more pain, more acid, more lava and scalding water. The leather strap was on the verge of snapping. Snake, somewhere, could feel the upper ridge of his teeth through it.

"Snake!" Zelda was calling his name from somewhere far off. "Snap out of it!"

"He won't hear you!" A louder growl called. Lucario…? "He can't right now, just give it time!"

And suddenly, it stopped.

The chaos, the pain.

Gone.

Lucario could be heard through a filter, but even that filter was fading, too. "I tried to get rid of it. I should have known… Maybe some of it's gone, but it just moved, moved to a different injury… In Arceus's name… In Areceus's name…" The words shut off like a faucet.

"You tried. Lucario… don't worry about it." The words felt thick in Snake's mouth, syrup, molasses coating his tongue. The leather strip fell out of his gasping mouth and landed next to his left arm. He couldn't feel it. His neck fell back onto the pillow, slimy with sweat. "Don't… worry."

Lucario didn't hear. "I should have done my research beforehand; I would have known then. Maybe…" He backed off from the bed.

Somewhere farther off, a door opened slowly in a serpentine hiss, then closed. It clicked shut.

Then Zelda was there, sitting at the bedside on a cushion, black robe taken off, revealing a sandy, light brown tunic, covering chain mail, belted at the waist. Like Link's, maybe. Her face shone with metal, like it was metal. It was… Right? Right.

"You look surprised." The words left without permission.

"You've fallen unconscious a lot," Zelda remarked in reply.

Snake didn't say anything. He took a long breath and stared at the ceiling in silence. "It's not something I want to do," he murmured finally.

Zelda stared out the window, like Lucario did before.

Her hands were clasped; her metal gauntlet was suddenly cold.

Ridiculous. You've worn it forever, ever since you got here. Or, were brought here. It would make sense either way. You've gotten used to the feeling, the control of this arm through magic, the weight…

And all of a sudden, the view of the black sky and fading horizon line of stars through the window was the most fascinating thing in the world.

XxX


	7. Impetus

XxX

_Impetus_

The sky was black. The horizon line was silent, the stars within having closed their eyes and winked out. Only those same streaks of otherworldly luminescence shone, hurtling about in ribbon-like formations, lighthouses in the dark of night.

Time really was something strange… It had only been a few minutes.

At least, that's what it felt like.

The window view felt cold now, a cold that reminded of benign evenings, laughing flurries and a warm cup of tea or coffee by the fireplace as ice crystals fell from above.

But there was no fireplace nearby. The view wasn't benign, and it wasn't laughing. There was no tea, no coffee. Zelda had said they didn't need it.

It was just… cold.

Some object flashed by the door-space, and Lucario was there, paws yet again aglow, thin body illumined by the open-flame torch on the wall.

He walked to the bedside, stepping over Zelda's body on the way.

Zelda snorted underneath, and that snort was a mix of a sneeze and a spotty cough.

Lucario froze where he stood, one leg partially lifted over the princess's blanketed body, paw hovering midair.

Zelda breathed easily, nose thrumming wide open, and her chest fell.

Lucario's leg finished the movement and settled on the translucent floor. _Tomp. _The other one followed, until he was flush to Snake's left. "My apologies for leaving earlier today." His voice was a reserved whisper, a light tickle. "I had… lost my nerve, is what you humans would call it, that loss of… a backbone, a source of support."

Snake grunted at the ceiling. "I don't blame you."

"I blame myself," replied the Pokémon. "I should have been able to handle it. I've seen enough."

"Like what?"

"Just enough." He didn't elaborate.

Snake shook his head. Barely.

As if in a silent acquiesce, Lucario handed over a vial. Blue liquid bubbled underneath a wooden cork, lapping up against the glass in an eager restlessness to expand beyond. "Here. For your injuries."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'd like to know what this is before I drink it."

Lucario asked, eyes twinkling, "You don't like medicine?" He took the vial back.

Snake nearly laughed then.

If only. If only. If only it were really that simple.

"Well," Lucario began, "it's for your inversion. The largest whip-mark on your chest was infected, but I assume the infection— inversion— was moved to a different injury. Maybe it moved to the arrow wound in your shoulder, or the one in your lower back. It's hard to tell."

"Back up." Snake sat up an inch or so more. Somewhere, the pain began to giggle, but that giggle was muffled under something. It felt nice, having to strain to hear it. "Start from the top."

Lucario plopped down on a stool at the foot of the bed. The impact jolted his spine, shocking his fur and vibrating his ears. "You saw Ganondorf, correct?" The twinkle in his eyes was gone.

"Yeah. More like, 'tried to prevent Ganondorf from killing me.'"

"You saw them, then. The darkened, grayed-out skin, the red eyes with black irises." Lucario fiddled with something in his paws, throwing it back and forth, back and forth, as the item seemed to catch the light and carry it to the object's next destination: the other paw. "Ganondorf was tainted, fouled by Zero's magic. He lost control. That's what happened to the rest."

"'The rest'?"

"Everyone else. Except, of course, for you, me, and them." He gestured to where Zelda was sleeping. Kirby was curled up next to her on the floor in a roly-poly ball of pink color. Was he wearing Zelda's robe…?

Snake felt his eyes narrow on their own accord; they didn't follow orders. "Where are they?"

"With Zero."

Something in Snake's chest tightened. Suddenly the pain was louder, straining to be heard in the cold mass that was his heart, his ribs. "Zero…? He…?"

"You could compare them to the living dead, the brain-washed corpses of those foolish and unlucky enough to be caught under Zero's fist." Lucario stroked the object in his hands. He had stopped throwing it. "Or, would 'eye' be more appropriate?"

"So… they're not dead?"

Now, Lucario laughed, a bark that sounded like the way a dog would when presented with something amusing. A toy, or maybe a live mouse. "We could argue about what death means here. Perhaps, were you to undo Zero-Two's curse, his iron grip, then maybe. Maybe they would be alive, smiling and happy. But now…"

Lucario let his gaze wander yet again, releasing it without a second thought. When his gaze returned, his red irises twinkled. No, not twinkled.

Burned.

"…Now, well, I'd have to think about that." He waved at Zelda, who was still sleeping, her breath catching in small, snorting jumps. But she was sleeping. Still. How? That laugh had been loud enough to wake the entire damn planet. "She had her heart both broken and stolen at once. Did I mention that earlier?"

"Lemme guess. I did it." Snake grumbled.

"No. Not this time." Lucario smirked, and Snake felt his pulse quicken and his arm muscles constrict, throb, throb. Damned dog. "Her heart was stolen by a young, dashing hero with blond hair and a horribly messy cap. This hero so happened to be the savior of Hyrule, bearer of the Triforce of Courage, and vanquisher of evil greed. But Link, I'm afraid to say, is out of commission."

"Is he…"

Lucario nodded. "Has Zelda shown you yet?"

"Pardon?"

Without missing a beat, Lucario replied, "I'm sure she will show you someday. She finds it more logical to be wearing something protective instead of waltzing around half naked above the waist."

"She's hiding something?"

"It's not what you think, pervert."

"I wasn't even—" Snake opened his mouth, mouth and jaws working, building something like a witty comeback, storing ammunition.

But then Lucario continued. "No, it's something that I wouldn't blame her for hiding. Well, 'them' is more apt. As in more than one. And again, it's not what you think, pervert."

Snake shut his mouth. Gone were the comebacks, and the ammo. "What does this have to do with Link?"

"You'll see," and Lucario smiled his canine smile. But, it had no color, no life. His fangs gleamed like icy metal, sharp like knives, and his lips seemed too tight. "Scars of all kinds are slow to heal. Someday I'm sure it will be clear to you."

Snake flopped on the pillow; his neck followed suit with loosened muscles. He sighed through his nostrils.

"I was sure you'd panic when I told you about inversions," mused Lucario in a lowered hum. "But you didn't."

"And what if I did?"

"Then I wouldn't be surprised." Lucario handed him the vial again. "Drink."

Snake clasped his hand around it. He raised his left arm to uncork it, and the arm yelped, creaking and griping.

The cork popped off, and the vial tilted backwards. The drink, colored like the blue ocean stained with radiant purple coloring, drained slowly, like syrup flowing down a tree to glop together at the base in one gummy clump. It stuck to Snake's throat. He swallowed, and somehow, it went down.

The pain went quiet. Completely. Gone. No more whispering, save for a gentle scratch in his lungs. Scritch, scratch, scritch. Then that was gone, too.

Lucario looked down at his legs, crossed, one elapsing over the other, swinging, swinging. "The inversion won't show itself for a while. It's deliberate and painful, as you felt before… The elixir I just gave you should make it… bearable. It will hurt, still, but you'll live."

"You can't cure it?"

"No," was the flat return. "I can only slow it down."

Snake huffed. Damn it all. "I should have expected that."

Lucario stopped quavering where he sat, and his legs stopped too. They started up again, and Lucario said, "You live in a sad, lonely world now. I wouldn't blame you if you gave up. I would be fine with letting you and the others stay for a little before leaving. Just think on it. Take some time, but it's not like you have the whole world…"

"Think on what?"

But Snake knew.

"It's not your place to fight Zero. You're not supposed to be here."

"And how did you know that?"

Lucario bent over, and the chair he sat on groaned in anger. It tilted forward, inch by inch, little by little. Lucario caught himself then, and the chair steadied back onto four legs with another groan. "Master Hand said you hadn't gotten your invitation yet: that, apparently, was the reason you hadn't checked in for this upcoming tournament. When someone asked, he said that, over and over. I knew better. He never sent the invitation, and he never wrote it."

"So…"

"Are you really that dense? I know you are supposed to be dead. Not because a bleeding eyeball says so, but because I did research. Found some information, thought it through with logic."

"How would you figure that out through logic?" Snake rubbed his left cheek, where he could feel the smallest of slants in his cheekbone. The skin under whimpered, but quieted immediately after.

"Well, maybe it's not logic so much as it is a good hypothetical guess backed up by evidence…"

"Isn't that a part of what logic is?"

There was a snicker, a snicker nearly a whole octave higher than Lucario's normal voice. "I suppose." His paw blurred with movement.

Suddenly something clinked in Snake's lap, settling in between his legs. Even through his pants, it felt… cold. Not like a cruel despot's gaze upon his citizens, but not like a snowstorm. Like ice, perhaps on the verge of melting. It had a strange… warmth to it. Warmth that radiated into his muscles. His legs, abruptly numb and unfeeling, tensed like coils, felt gelatinous, like they would lose substance and fade out.

The object was a sort of rectangular crystal bathed in clear light, pointed at both ends in four-sided pyramids, too opaque to be glass. He held it up, and as soon as it contacted the pads of his fingers, smothered in dust and crusts of blood, the cold was there again, that same melting-ice feeling working into his hand and palm. "What is this?"

"You ask a lot of questions, soldier." Lucario pointed at the wall space adjacent to the torch, and where there was an ebony dresser, there was now a doorway. Closed, with symbols of prismatic color, snippets of writing from an era long past. The words, comparable to gibberish, flowed with purpose, zipping, moving in fluid motions through tracts in the dark crystal wall. "The crystal is a key. For the bathhouse, in case you were wondering. I don't jest; I truly do have a bathhouse."

Snake got out of bed, the cold crystal in hand. His legs exhaled as they stretched, and he could already feel his muscles unclenching. "I don't think I've ever been in one of those."

"You haven't lived until you've been to a nice bathhouse."

"Huh…"

"Well," Lucario said, an unplaceable tone in his words, "it's not too late to start living."

XxX

Snake slipped in the water, water that seared, water that steamed and cloaked everything in mist. He sank in up to his chin, and sat on the underwater step for balance.

The ceiling above, like the floor, like the walls of the pool and the room, was crystal, a mix of amethyst, black marble, and obsidian. That's what it seemed to be. With the fog, the steam that clogged his pores and coated his face, he couldn't tell.

He sat, quiet for a few seconds, and snorted. No one was there to hear it.

Ceilings of crystal, of stone. Fog. Bathhouses. Why did it matter? Why did it matter, when somewhere nearby, a… creature, monstrosity, was bent on making the whole world suffer? When somewhere, he was hunting the three of them down? Him, Kirby, Zelda… Maybe Lucario, as well…

Snake saw it then, in his mind. Darkness. Everywhere. The light he knew, the light he felt from the sky, the sun, the stars, was gone, extinguished like a useless candle. The wick was a charred crisp, the wax was melting, and somewhere out there Zero was laughing.

But something else popped into mind.

He grinned. Out of nowhere, it seemed. _It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight—_

Then the moment passed. The candle seemed to relight itself in his brain. The wick straightened and burst to life, and the song lyrics had disappeared. It was then he remembered. A faint whisper, a memory…

Otacon had sung that somewhere. Maybe? Maybe. It was before Snake had left for Europe … Or, maybe it was after, after he came back, after the Patriots were destroyed, but before he—

_Hey, Snake, have you ever heard of Survivor?_

_ What, that cheesy wilderness show?_

_ No! Well, that's a thing, but I'm talking about the band. Y'know, "Eye of the Tiger"?_

_ No. _

_ Well, alright, but listen. That song I was singing earlier was originally sung by them!_

_ Yeah, okay, but have you ever heard of singing lessons?_

_ Agh! Forget I said anything._

Snake felt something fall in his chest, his ribcage shrank. His fist balled, muscles contracting as if the ceiling was in reach, as if it was something he could slug.

Then, Lucario said, a record playing over and over, somewhere, "It's not too late to start living. It's not too late to start living."

On the third round, he, Lucario, faded out. "Not too late… start… late… living…"

Snake waved a hand, waved a hand through the hot mist as if he were shooing away flies. Lucario's voice, confused and muddled, and his words, words about living and starting too late, croaked, then dissipated completely.

Snake's arm fell and bent on the stone floor, out of the pellucid bath, hand hanging over the lip of the pool. The tips of his fingers dribbled in the water, distorted and bulging at the joints under the waterline. They traced out ripples that followed his hand where it went.

The time flowed.

It flowed, a running river through the ground, and then Snake was pulling himself out of the pool, leaving the clear steam and the warmth of the water behind him.

A wash basin, the wood thick and polished, sat next to a low bench made of blue-purple crystal, like the walls, the ceiling. He reached in, then out, splashing the cloudless liquid onto his face. The water was cold. Somehow, it tasted like… Snow, freshly fallen.

The crust, the filth that restrained his skin, washed out, drizzling over his hands. It dripped down, and suddenly the bottom of the basin was foggy, flecks of dirt and white ash mingling amongst circling traces of rusted blood.

He shook his head. Specks of water plipped against the wall, and the cold traces flung off his gray hair strands.

Well. Were they still gray?

Above the wash basin hung a mirror, the edges rimmed with brown mold, creeping over the glass like an early winter's frost. He looked in.

The burns, burns on the left side of his face, were gone. Gone, like they never even existed. His moustache, that tuft of withering hair, was gone. His facial hair, the hair on his head…

They were brown. Auburn, streaked with sandy colors, streaked with darker mahogany browns as well. His mullet cut fell loose, loose like it normally did, before—

He grumbled incoherently to himself. Dammit. You aren't drunk, idiot.

And his eyes. Blue…?

He never knew one of them was supposed to be red.

XxX


	8. Parallels

XxX

_Parallels_

The time flowed again. Hours, days. Hours in bed, hours out and about, bustling and busy. Hours recovering, staring out that cold window.

But that bathhouse…

Holy hell. That felt good…

It didn't last.

Zelda ruffled through a low cabinet, hands flying about in a mad sprint. A rusted dagger, rubies in the hilt and in the crossguard, flew over her shoulder, striking a torch. It clanged off, and the torch remained snug and tight in its holder. But, the flame… It reared up, spewing extra flickers, then relaxed.

She stopped and leaned back on her knees as Kirby peeked in next, rifling through clothes, articles, badges, old papers that crinkled and rasped under life's touch, anything in his way. Something caught his eye. It was a spoon, wooden with swirls of tan timber, splintered along the handle, almost dyed red.

Why was it dyed red? Why not, say, dark brown? Or pink? Or polka-dotted yellow? Why did it have to be red?

Kirby grumbled, mouth set thin, and put it back in the drawer, in the far corner.

Spoons wouldn't help.

As he rummaged some more, sometimes bending up and over the edge, digging for something deeper inside the drawer, Zelda looked about the room. Eyes gleaned through the glow of fogged torches, glanced over a worn coat of arms, a steel shield with the top half cut clean off…

She saw it, lying on another shelf.

She bit her lip, okay, now that was a bad habit, and tightened her metal hand. That was, too.

Zelda rose slightly. Her hand tightened again, then again. All the time, the metal screeched and creaked, moaning, a mirror of her own thoughts, of ideas and memories that seemed to—

Then Lucario was in the room, paws hanging limp at his sides. The aura, the blue sheen they carried like gloves, was nothing now. "Find anything?"

"Yes, we did. We found stuff. Just… not useful stuff." Zelda settled back down, suddenly very aware of… it, on that shelf. It was taunting her and sticking its tongue out, laughing at her scrunched face, her downtrodden eyebrows. "Or stuff I'd like to see."

"Hmm. Every item here has a story to tell."

She wanted to point out that these items couldn't talk. They couldn't recount details, they couldn't remember days gone by. But maybe…

Snake walked in silently and stood next to Lucario. He kept glaring down at himself and the tops of his feet clad in black boots, as if they were being offensive and making rude gestures. Were they? "I don't find this wardrobe change amusing."

"It's your last day here with me. Be glad for clothing that may someday save your life."

"Yeah, well, you coulda picked something less…"

"Nostalgic? It wasn't exactly my choice. Need I remind you that I wasn't there when you wore this? It appeared at your bedside one morning. That's all."

"Wait…" Zelda poked in. She could see it… That same suit Snake wore to the third tournament, the skintight one, all gray and dark, a corset wrapped around his lower back. She almost snorted. The image... Her lips tightened, the edges pulling upwards in a sly arc.

Zelda looked up, and saw his face. His mouth was set in a thin line, lips pursed, eyes bright with something far off.

Her own smile fell.

Then, she looked again, and her eyes widened. This suit wasn't exactly the same… Sure, there was the element of gray, the skintight material, but there was the black thermal vest that covered his chest on top, the extra pads on the elbows and knees. "Why does that look so familiar, yet so different?"

"Because it is different." Lucario murmured, "It's an old one."

"I don't think you were there," Snake said, and there was a growl in his voice.

"What? At Shadow Moses Island, in your human year 2005, in your cold, barren month of February?" The words out of Lucario's mouth suddenly stung, piercing underneath the rich tone, the barking rumble. "It's still considered suffering, isn't it? What you experienced? And how should that be any different than where we are now?"

Snake didn't reply.

And suddenly the air was thick, thick with unspoken thoughts that would expire and crumble to nothing, to dust gathered in shadowed corners until someone came years later to sweep up the desiccated ashes.

A cough escaped Zelda. She bunched a clenched fist to her mouth, closed over the cough. It had already left. "So, ah, Snake. What supplies do you have?"

"Just this." He pulled it out of its sheath. Even short, even stocky, it sang, it gleamed with the fervor of a broadsword, or of a battle axe.

"One knife?"

"I don't have much firepower here in the armory." Lucario stared down at his feet, crossing his arms over his chest, underneath his chest spike. "And Snake didn't want an actual sword or anything… I found him a knife, if that's of any help."

Snake turned the blade over. The hilt, leather-wrapped below a simple crossguard of iron, sank into his hand. The grooves matched his fingers, and the weight… He couldn't feel it. "It fits well."

"I suppose that weapon will be helpful, then," Lucario said. "I hope it is…"

Kirby peeked out of the drawer and sat back on his haunches. He shook his head, or body, side to side, eyes downcast and cloudy.

Suddenly, he perked up, and walked across the room, to that shelf.

Oh, gods…

Kirby walked back, the repulsive thing in his pink hands.

All of the eight strings had snapped. Some were snapped at the top, the rest snapped out of their slots at the bottom. The ends were curled like lazy tails lying in the afternoon sun, their cares having melted away. The golden paint, or covering, or metal, or whatever, had peeled, revealing plain wood. Wood, just wood, shaped in a small U, capped with decorative curls. Dust mottled the surface, weaving across the wood and swooping, gliding patterns in a thick shell.

She took it, hands trembling. It wasn't like they were cold. "Where did you find this? It was lost in the mansion." As if her hands were thinking differently, they fed the strings back into their places, unfurled them in a slow trailing of fingers.

"It wasn't my choice to have any of these items appear here. They just… did. I can't hope to explain it."

Zelda choked on something. Saliva. Maybe. "I gave this harp to Link… And he never gave it back…"

Snake bent over her, staring at the cursed instrument, eyes open wide. "Why?"

"Because before he could give it back, Zero had…" She let out a rattling breath that shook her lungs, her bones. Without thinking, her hands tensed and clenched. Underneath, the strings yelped, pinging. They were completely out of tune. "Zero arrived, and we were here. And I never found it."

She stared at the wall as the strings were tuned, as her ears and hands did the work for her. Twisting, plucking to make sure the open strings sounded right. One string aligned, and then another, until all of them were the right pitch, waiting to be pressed and strummed, waiting to—

Oh, gods. Oh, gods. She couldn't help it. Farore knows how long it had been since she last touched an instrument, blew into an ocarina, plucked a harp…

And her fingers began to move.

They sang like liquid water, warbled like a running stream through a forest blanketed in silence. The song was haunting; the melody fell down and seemed to pick itself up with a weight on its shoulders, the low fog hanging on its back. The accompanying harmony was dragging along, its feet still in the ground yet still moving. One step, then another. One-two, one-two.

Zelda closed her eyes, and still her fingers played. One chord, then the next, fell in line, seaming into one after the other. The notes took their turns, humming, ringing into the following notes once their respective turns were done. Still, they stayed, to wait out the show, to linger until the curtains fell.

The last note was plucked, the last chord played through.

She opened her one eye, opened her eye to look into Snake's blue ones, sparked with electricity. Lucario was vaguely bobbing, moving his head along to a tinny, ghostly rhythm, a rhythm that had faded long ago.

Kirby was staring up at her, eyes dancing inside to that same ghost rhythm played by those in the afterlife. The light danced on his face, in a sloping, galloping way.

Hurriedly, as if she were missing an appointment, Zelda put the harp down, but then it moved slowly, slowly, don't hurt it now… It seemed to stretch out, not for the earth under it but for her hands again, for her hands to play, to sing and dance under a still moon, and, Farore's wind, to be carried away on a gentle breeze. A breeze that spoke of lazy afternoons, the haze stirring the plants and stoutly carrying his ocarina's melody—

And that melody would reach a faraway land, and carry with it the selfsame gait and straight back, reserved gaze it carried when it flew from the ocarina that first taught her—

Zelda bit her lip again. The people before her were blurred.

Why was her eye moist?

"The Song of Healing," Lucario said, and his voice was a whisper. "By Arceus's name, I have not heard that song in… ages, not from the ocarina, not from the harp. Millennia, it seems… By Arceus…"

And he got up. His voice was raised now, and that whisper was gone. "Follow me. I suppose you want to leave now, get a good head start."

He ushered them out the door. But he never rushed, he never ushered people out. Why now…?

Then they were outside, through the dark halls lit only by purple torches. Past the bathhouse, past Snake's room, past the other doors, doors that led through and into darkness…

As she stepped outside, surrounded by black trees, she grasped her hand tighter. The harp was still in it. She tucked it into the satchel over her shoulder, closed the flap tight over it.

Lucario, at Snake's side, threw something at him. Small, compact, blurring in lines of motion. Liquid blue sloshing inside, frothing at a wooden cork on top.

Snake reached out and caught it.

"One small sip should last a day. I measured it out… There should be enough for two weeks or so. Maybe less, maybe more. You might need more if anything happens, if your inversion acts up." All this time, the jackal looked at the ground between his paws, never looking up, left, right. He wouldn't meet Snake's eyes, or Kirby's, or Zelda's… "And don't think you'll be able to come back for a refill. By the time Zero is in reach, I'll be a long ways away."

Snake tucked it in a pouch belted at his right thigh. "Then come with us," he said. "You'd be helpful."

Lucario immediately shook his pointed head. Left, right. Left, right. His… bangs… bobbed along with him. "Forgive me. I cannot bring myself to go along. I… I…" He breathed deep, and his chest expanded. "Perhaps I don't want to. Perhaps I do. And perhaps I cannot bring myself to face Zero again."

The he raised his face, and his eyes alighted upon Zelda. But not on her face, or on her eyes. On her satchel, where her harp still lay, dormant but wishing for more song.

Zelda didn't say anything. His eyes, the way they focused, and yet hung in the distance…

"I can give you directions. Go left from here, and follow the sound of running water. When you get close, there's a stream; go parallel along it, towards the horizon. The stream will dip into a canyon, and the canyon runs perpendicular to the horizon line. When you reach the end of the canyon, the horizon line will be there right in front of you."

Zelda clenched her fist. She couldn't help it. "As will Zero's palace."

Lucario's eye seemed to twitch, and he turned around, once again facing the tree.

"I'd wish you luck. But I won't."

All three of the travelers glanced at him. Kirby jolted up from the ground and fixed wide eyes on the Pokémon.

"Because there isn't enough to go around."

The tree dissolved, the door appeared in the midst of the plant, and then Lucario was gone, back into his shelter.

XxX


	9. Lament

XxX

_Lament_

"Zelda."

"Hmm?" She had her head down, watching her feet move along, gliding on the surface. One-two, one… Agh. One-two, one-two, one… The rhythm was off. So much for that.

So she looked up. Her feet moved along, and of course, the rhythm was off. Well. "Hmm?" she asked again.

Snake fingered the hilt of his knife, belted at his waist. His steps were silent. They made no sound, no sound at all… "Nevermind. I'll ask later."

Zelda raised an eyebrow. She would have raised both, but her mask got in the way. The touch of it… She was used to it; she had worn it for ages, now. But, still.

She had never taken it off since meeting Lucario again. Snake would be wondering, right? What would be under that mask of hers? A missing eye? Maybe something else… A monstrosity, an evil being of darkness…? Pfft.

Her head jerked, and then she was looking at Snake, feeling her one visible eye widen. Then, it narrowed.

She shook her head and returned her gaze to the path ahead of her. He had said nothing, hinted at nothing. Wait it out. You'll see. It's all a matter of time before he sees you for yourself… Right? Sometimes that never really happens, like with Link, when he—

She stepped and felt empty air. Zelda froze with one leg propped up.

Zelda looked down.

The ground slanted suddenly, into a low pit. The slopes ramped up in a steep incline. The bottom was littered with trees, shrubs, tall black grasses wreathing the area and waving in a cold, nonexistent wind, flags fluttering to the sound of nothing.

She lowered her foot, and then lowered a second foot.

They were climbing down the side, slowly, unrushed. Snake nearly tripped, nearly fell face-first. He caught himself using the slope as a handhold. His feet anchored themselves, his body stiffened.

Zelda looked over. Since when did he ever trip? The last tournament was a tripping disaster, sure, but that was only because the floors were kept so ungodly clean between rounds that one time when they had to—

Snake's cheekbones stood out, almost too much. His eye sockets sank into the skin, craters in a shallow, snow-white face. And, his eyes. Blue…?

One, his left, was now red.

Zelda felt her chest tighten, her lungs squeeze. Why hadn't she ever noticed…? "Snake, did it ever occur to you that maybe we rushed this?"

He grunted. No. No, we didn't rush this, we didn't, so shut up and keep walking. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not fine," muttered Zelda, low under her breath, the cold tickling her lips, the inside of her mouth.

Snake didn't reply.

They trudged into the tall grasses. She glanced back, up at the top, above the lip of the fissure. Zelda could still see the very tips of the stolid tree branches above, still spiraling up to the heavens, clawing their way through the dark clouds and tearing down the sky, the stars, whatever was in the middle of their own respective roads.

The wind was howling now, but then it faded. It howled, then faded. The sky seemed to twinkle everywhere, take on a shade of lighter purple-black before the wind howled some more, keening as if in deep mourning.

Gods… Why was everything so… dark?

Zelda shook her head again. How many times had she shaken her head so far?

Out of the corner of her eye, Snake twitched. The twitch started in his upper shoulder and spread, down through his body. The shades in his face, the colors, went through every tint of white, from pure white to gray-white, to—

He stopped to lean against a tree. He tilted his head back, until that was leaning against the tree, too, with his hair getting caught in the bark. His left shoulder pulsed.

It may have been the lighting, or her imagination, but the part of his neck that was visible…

Was it turning gray? Black?

"You should drink that potion Lucario gave you. It wouldn't hurt."

Snake shook his head. He dragged his gloved right hand over his face, fingers against the bridge of his nose, his eyebrows. "I'm fine," he said. Again. Cursed human… "I'm saving it."

Zelda snorted. Through the mask, it echoed and clanged. "Okay."

They stood there. One leaned against a tree, one stood in the open. Zelda's hand strayed off the path to her satchel, to the pocket with the harp. The flap opened under her metallic fingers, then closed. Open, close. It stayed closed.

Kirby was there, sword drawn. He, the sword, was pointing into the colorless grasses, the undergrowth of sickly brambles and bushes. Waving it about, pointing in various directions off to his left and right…

"Poyo," he mumbled. His sword gleamed as streaks in the sky swirled around it. "Poyo."

Zelda leaned down, eye keen on the grasses waving to a ghost rhythm, colder, from a darker part of the world. "Kirby. Tell us if you see anything."

He nodded and continued to point his sword.

"Aren't you going to tell him?"

"Tell him what?"

"That he's not helping."

She shrugged. "He can believe whatever he wants to. Who knows? And I don't want to jinx us again… That was… Agh. I would prefer not to repeat that."

Snake, still leaning against the skeleton tree, clenched a fist. A vein in his neck popped out. Maybe… Black coloring was working its way through that vein, up and up, worming closer to his jawbone. Then it stopped. Just stopped, like it had hit a wall, slammed into a barricade, collided with a fortress.

His chest fell, unclenched along with his hand. He forced a breath through his mouth. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Zelda couldn't help it. She looked at him, and made sure her eye, her good eye, was narrowed. "Really? Because it would be a shame to see you reduced to something I have to carry around because you can't move or do anything on your own."

Snake met her eye with his own two eyes. One blue, one red. Gods… That was… strange. "I won't be."

He brushed himself off and stood up, letting go of the tree.

She turned, turned to continue into the grasses. Somewhere ahead, there was a gurgle, a gurgle of water through a tract in the ground. Perhaps… And she could hear it. Faintly, a slight moan, whisper. Soft, but it was there. Somewhere ahead, and they would get there soon enough. And once they were at the river, they'd follow it to—

Something whipped past her cheek, the one with the mask over it, her left. She could feel the temperature drop, the sudden gush of air. It arced past her head.

A hollow clang hit her, bouncing off, and the thing suddenly felt warm. Warmth as a liquid ran down her pointed ear. It snapped at her hair and sped off.

She stepped to the side, drawing her sword in her metal hand.

The thing thudded into a tree. She heard the _thwack¸ _the meaty impact as the object cut into bark.

Snake was there, bent at the knees with his knife drawn, eyes darting about. Kirby was next to him, sword still pointing this way, that way, up, down.

In front of them came a howl. It was the wind, sure… But it sounded miles away, underwater and submerged in the depths.

The object… She turned to look.

It was an arrow, fletched in familiar colors, the diamond head embedded halfway through a tree's trunk, stark against the black surface.

And it had come from in front of them.

There. A rustle. The upper branches of a tree ahead, towering high above the others to get to the heavens, rustled, then rustled some more.

Something blurred atop it, and the blur settled in front of them.

Zelda's hearing dimmed, until she was hearing things through a tunnel. The tunnel went on and on, and everything else around her… the trees, the hollow grasses… faded out of sight. Her heart squeezed, as did her lungs, as did her metal hand. She could hear it: the tightening of fingers around the hilt, choking the material it was made of. Snake didn't notice; neither did Kirby. They were still staring ahead, staring with eyes open wide as the blur settled into something visible. They didn't look at Zelda, didn't see her reaction, didn't know that she could sense it—

But she knew, long before she could see it, long before the motions blurs faded.

The sword it… he… carried had a purple hilt. The cap on his human-shaped, chiseled head was green; it didn't match his bleached, bone-dry skin, gray and black spinning underneath. Gray hair fell ragged against his white cheeks, his stark pointed ears.

His eyes, she knew, were both red. She didn't need to look.

The blade of her sword burst into flames. She could sense it: the warmth, summoned from nothing, flickering up, licking the sides of the metal. Her hand, her magical hand, was shaking. Control it, control it…

She raised it, pointing it forward at eye level. But her hand… Her hand was shaking. Zelda took a step back, sword still pointing forward. Just for some space…

He lunged in a fraction of a second, a moment, his sword withdrawn from the sheath. And she shifted her arm, raising her own sword in response. The flames roared, reaching out for him, and the metal clashed together, blade against blade, Zelda against—

"Link," she said, voice strained, choking… she could barely hear herself over her own heartbeat, her wheezing breath, "You've done enough."

He kept coming, kept swinging, parrying, stabbing and thrusting forward in a bolt of dark lightning. His eyes were wide, wide and red with the fervor of cold storms, whipping against all that lay in their paths as they sped, spun in flurries, whirls of raging wind. _Clang, clang. _Then, _clang, clang. _Again, again, and again. And Zelda was caught amidst, amidst a storm she couldn't turn her back on for fear it would stab her in cold blood.

But maybe her own sword was enough. Maybe it would help.

Zelda's arm flashed, and Link sidestepped. She kept coming closer and swinging. Their blades still crossed, still wailed against one another. Just not as often. The flames had faded from her weapon, and now it shone, shone from a brief washing, cleaning.

He stared her in the eye as their weapons chimed again, crossing and slamming into each other at the tip, the crossguard. And his lips… They turned upwards, not into a smile but a snarl, a silent snarl that would have been more appropriate on a wolf, a coyote, a beast. But he wasn't. He hadn't been. But—

Oh, gods.

Gods—

_Clang, clang. _Link ducked under a stab, somehow catching the crossguard of Zelda's sword against his, the Master Sword's "wings" entwined with Zelda's hilt. Her metal knuckles bent out of shape, turning in an abrupt burst of motion, and then it, Zelda's sword, was out of her hand. It hit the floor, where it clinked to a standstill.

Zelda fell back, losing the ground she gained. Link lunged again, sword high above and ready to strike down.

Zelda tripped, one of her legs tumbling out from under her. She raised her left hand as her right was wrenched backwards, behind her. And it, her left hand and arm, burst into flame all the way from the elbow down to her fingers. But it didn't hurt, even though it was flesh and bone, even though it burned through her sleeve. It didn't… hurt…

Zelda shoved her left hand, fingers aflame, at Link's face. Somehow, he was caught off guard. Somehow he couldn't dodge, couldn't block or back up. Link landed on top of her as Zelda toppled on her backside.

His eyes, red eyes, glared from under her hand, cold and wintry like ice, and she felt something red-hot in her chest build—

And the flames suddenly flared in a surge of wrath, a fiery tidal wave frothing smoke. They ate at his skin, blazed white and orange against black, grayed flesh. She held her fingers over his face and suspended his body above hers, palm clasped tightly as it continued to sing, to burn. Zelda lay, squinting against the blaze, the fire from her own hand.

Link wrenched his face away in a twist of his neck. He stumbled away, closer to the grove of trees he came from, face smoking and peeling. Already, blisters were popping up and rupturing, rupturing like miniature volcanoes. He was falling over himself, swatting away midges that crowded around his eyes, that burned away his skin. The grasses parted to let him by, and he stumbled against a tree. His head knocked backwards.

He let go of his sword. It fell by his feet.

Zelda got up onto her own feet, waving like seaweed, seaweed in a trance, as Link writhed against the tree trunk.

He began to melt steadily, his clothes and mauled visage dripping down into a glob that had no features or face, a cursed snowman of black powder melting under a cursed midnight sun. Link's essence was becoming one with the tree, flowing into the bark, fusing with the boughs. But, then he seemed to be flaking off the tree, as pieces of him, pieces of his melted body dissolved like pieces of lost, corrupted data, like Galleom had—

And he was gone. The wind howled after him.

More like, _pieces _of him—

Zelda collapsed, her knees ignorant, unable to turn to her and lay a hand on her shoulder, to support her… She couldn't help it, gods, gods… She buried her face in her hands, gripping her mask. Her nose enlarged and something cursedly disgusting dribbled down on top of her lips, curse it all, why now, why, gods… Something cold, cool, wet fell down her face in a smooth arc, coalescing in a drop at her chin… Gods. And her palms were wet, she could feel her metal hand, now colder with water covering it, gods.

She didn't know how loud she was, if she was making any noise at all. She didn't know, but it didn't matter, she was allowed to cry, she was allowed, it was okay to cry…

"Zelda."

She lifted her head, wiped her cursed, wet face on the sleeve of her robe. "I-I'm okay. I mean," and a laugh escaped her mouth, escaped in a bubble of spit, as she choked, "I will be okay. Yes, yes. It'll be fine, it'll be—"

"Zelda!" Snake raised his voice, raised the volume and growled, growled like a dog, a cursed dog, a damnable dog, a… "Pull yourself together!"

Kirby walked up to her side, and pulled at her robe. He still held his sword in one hand, dragging the tip behind him…

Zelda, still wiping her face, still sniffling, rose onto her feet, onto the legs that wouldn't support her, legs that gave way—

And she found herself falling. Again. But something clamped over her shoulders, steadied her as she tottered forward, tiptoed, knees turned to jelly, sobs bubbling in her throat, pushing up and escaping out in gasping, hiccupping cries. Gods, gods. She leaned forward, leaned on Snake as her legs abandoned her, as she cried, and she couldn't stop, gods, why was this happening now when they needed to be running, gods. She was glad that Snake had sheathed his knife beforehand, that the blade was hidden and covered earlier—

Her chest convulsed, tightened as if something was wrapping around it in coils, over and over… Zelda could sense her arm twitching, trying to wrench away from the person next to her, the person holding her upright.

"Snake," she whispered. She couldn't hear herself; the world was falling, her ears were shut, pulsing with blood inside the veins, arteries… Maybe ears weren't supposed to have too much blood…

"What?"

"You can let go now."

He loosened his grip, and Zelda stood.

She leaned over to stare at the ground; she had lost her sword… Dropped it after Link had gone. She bent over, bent at the hip to reach forward and pick it up… The hilt felt cold, almost, even though the blade had been on fire just a few—

And she bit her lip. Bad habit, bad habit…!

The wind was howling again, tearing at the trees as it came from nowhere, originated from nothing and tussled the grasses, the branches, the ferns.

_Ahahaha…_

It was nothing, Zelda thought, head darting about, this way and that, a fish looking for food. It was just my imagination… Zero's not here; Zero couldn't have made that chuckle—

_Ahahahaha… _It was watery, submerged and covered in barriers, sounding far away through the grove. But it was still a chuckle, a laugh, and I should take it seriously, I should—

_You… are nothing…_

She grabbed Snake's right wrist and ran. The trees blurred, the grasses faded to a smudged line below her knees, her heartbeat was the loudest sound around her. Her ankle twisted; she couldn't feel it, her legs were pumping too hard. There was a cry from behind them; Kirby…? Maybe he had tripped? Fallen on his face? He'd have to catch up… Not a problem…

Zelda kept running. Her fingers… Her metal fingers were frozen around Snake's wrist. She thought and thought, open, fingers, open… as she ran, and she almost tripped… She could feel her toes crack…

Zelda's next foot slammed down and she continued, continued running. She didn't stop, even though she couldn't feel her ribcage, even though someone was driving a knife between her eyes. And her stomach, gods… There wasn't even anything in the cursed thing but it felt shut and tight, too tight, and her head began to throb with her stomach, yowling wildly and bouncing inside with too much force and it hurt, hurt like she was about to throw up, gods—

And then she was falling forward, tossed forward by something behind her, no, it was just her own momentum, pushing her ahead…

She landed not on the ground, not on the smooth, polished, purple earth, but in water. Water that trickled in between the slits of her mask that buoyed her hair in a wreath above her head, that carried her in a shower of excited bubbles, rising to the surface and carrying her along. Her satchel suddenly dragged down; in a moment it had become a weight that sank lower and lower, taking her along for the ride. It was cold… Gods… She couldn't see the bottom; it was too dark to see anything that far down… Gods…

She swam, arms pushing up, don't stop, go, go… Her head surfaced, and she gulped. The cold. Cold. She was shivering, and her legs hurt, but they were numb; she could still feel it and she didn't want to…!

The bank was a fuzzy line, blurred, but she reached out to it. Her hand slipped, but it was her metal one and that was what she had maybe been expecting… Zelda reached out again, with her left, and she gripped, gripped until she felt a fingernail crack on her hand. Maybe it was her pinkie—

Snake surfaced next to her, gasping, drenched hair plastered down his face. He spat out globs of water and grabbed onto the bank. He pulled himself up out of the river and plopped on his knees. His breathing… His left shoulder was throbbing. His left eye was red, still.

Kirby bobbed to the surface, and if she hadn't been thinking straight she would have assumed Kirby was a very pink apple of some kind. Wait, she wasn't really thinking—

"You could have gotten us killed," Snake growled as Zelda and Kirby pulled themselves up next to him. Snake was still spluttering, still wheezing from the bottom of his lungs. "Real smart, Zelda."

"Sorry," murmured Zelda. Her voice… It felt too cold. Nothing. There was nothing she could find in it, no warmth, no tone. "I heard—"

"You heard Zero. Yeah. I get it."

The princess, the queen— gods, titles didn't matter anymore— tightened her fist. Her right one. It would do more damage than her left if she punched something… someone. "They're looking for us. Link isn't dead; he did that before. He went off to tell them. Sorry, but we needed to get out of there. We'll see him again, I'm sure."

"Huh," Snake said. "And why are you so sure…?"

She didn't respond.

The silence was laced with frost, frost like the cold feeling floating about in the river in front of them.

Zelda tilted her head, and a stream of water followed from her ear. She tilted the other way, and more water splurged out onto the ground. She slung her bag off her shoulder and bunched herself up, knees close to her face as she shivered underneath her robe. Finally, breaking the frost, she let herself talk. "Drink that potion. I think it should help."

"Already did." Snake was putting it in the pouch at his thigh, below where his knife was sheathed. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not," she flared. "No, you're not, and none of us ever will be, not until that damned eyeball is destroyed so that he never comes back—"

"D'you really think that's helping?"

Zelda closed her mouth but just as soon opened it again. "It makes me feel better, once in a while," she said, voice small and crunched up.

Somewhere in his throat, Snake chuckled. But… his chuckle had a hard, tough edge, a sharp, abrasive point. "I don't blame you." He flopped down on the ground, his back propped up against a tree hanging over the river's edge, his face set in stone and bathed in a blue, rippling light. His mouth set, he murmured, "You two get some rest. I'll take first watch."

"We… we just started out! It's only been a few hours since we left Lucario…"

"So?"

"But we're supposed to be running! Link and whatever damned reinforcements he summoned could be on us at any second!"

"So you'd run to certain death, then? Without rest?"

Zelda's mouth closed on its own. Her head throbbed in time with her arms and frigid, pale-numb chest, and she wanted nothing less than to punch Solid Snake in the face.

She tried to speak. What she tried to say next came out cracked, squeaky. "No."

He grunted, and the red in his left eye suddenly flickered, flickered back to blue, then to red again. He said, "I thought so."

When he didn't speak again, Zelda fell on her back, remaining where she was, right next to Kirby. Her eyes closed, and she drifted off.

XxX


	10. Revival

XxX

_Revival_

Kirby was snoring; as soon as he woke up he could hear himself snort a final time before the bubble in his own mouth popped in an outward dome. He rubbed his pink head… Rubbed was accurate. He didn't have fingers.

His foot nudged something cold, hard. His sword lay at his feet in a kind of stupor, the metal unfeeling and bitter. Why was it bitter? Why wasn't it happy? After all, one could never be too happy.

He glanced around in fleeting bits and pieces, the dark sky spinning around him. He had forgotten to stow the sword…? So, then, he had carried it through the river while running with Snake and Zelda, carried it with him as he had been running? Why? Why hadn't he just stopped, concentrated for half a second, and put it away? This was the only weapon he had, and if he had somehow lost it, somehow dropped or misplaced it along the way… What then?

An image popped into his head, moving from one point to the next. It was an image where he didn't have a sword, where his inhaling, his great influxes of air didn't work, they didn't work and it wasn't helping the people around him and there was blood on the ground and on him. It wasn't his blood on him and that thought made his shiver…

Kirby rubbed his head again. Why would he shiver if it wasn't his blood?

Did he bleed? _Could _he bleed? Eh. When was the last time…? Eh. Can't remember right now. Try later.

He glanced over. Zelda was curled up on the ground, breathing softly. Snake was sitting against the tree, staring around as the blue light from the river bathed his face in waves of color.

It was then Kirby remembered. Ah, yes. In his mind's eye, he had a box full of little white cylinders of what felt like paper but had no use whatsoever, really… They didn't summon anything or burn anything up or destroy any of their enemies… Zelda had found it while looking through Lucario's stuff and had thrown it back inside the drawer… Hehe. Don't tell her, but it looked interesting, with all the white papery stuff inside…!

Kirby walked over and had the box in his hand a moment later.

Snake looked down, down on his round pink head, and stared at the box Kirby held. "Where'd you get that?"

Kirby gestured over at Zelda's form, which was curled on the ground, seemingly hugging something in its sleep. He returned his gaze upwards to Snake, whose face was frozen, set in hard granite. He had bags under his eyes.

After a moment, he said, voice low, "I quit smoking a while back."

Wh-what? So the box was full of cigarettes? Oh… Why did he stop smoking, then…?

Kirby watched Snake for a moment, watched those narrowed eyes and then watched the box in his own grasp. He let out a tiny sigh, no bigger than a small gust of wind or whatever made small sighing noises, and the box disappeared from his hand in a flurry, into the river.

Snake whipped his head, eyes keen, as the box sailed in an arc. It landed in a plume of water and was soon taken downstream, bobbing along with the current and dipping under as little baby waves crashed over it. Pfft. Baby waves…

The box bumped against a rock somewhere further downstream, and the rock… twitched, almost… The white mass of a cigarette box was moving farther away, farther away, it seemed, from the man who didn't really want it anymore… Hmm.

And the rock moved again. Yep, definitely twitched. Hummed with life and new purpose, grew in size as it rose out of the river—

A waterfall cascaded over them, back upstream towards them, a wall of liquid froth. And the waterfall fell over the banks, attacked the trees and grasses around it in fervor like a squall. The cold was numbing, and Kirby felt it, trickling into his insides and freezing his bones. Did he even have bones…?

_Tmp. Tmp. _Booms shook the ground, powered by dusty gears and waterlogged circuits. The thing, the vague shape hidden by mist, was pounding towards them, along the river's edge, two… claws extended. Claws, like the claws on a crab, or a lobster—

Zelda was awake, once again sopping and dripping, sword drawn. She threw herself to the side, slamming into Kirby and knocking him to the right. Snake rolled and landed on his feet.

Something hard met Kirby's face. _Hello, _he thought, flopping to the floor as it slapped him, blocked the breath that jumped out of his mouth. His sword was in his hand then, retrieved from his floating locker.

The beast's feet stopped, gears clanking several times before stopping. He could feel its presence: cold, clammy and dark with bony, skeletal hands, as if it were sucking the warmth from him, wrinkling his skin and snapping the cord that bound his life to his body.

Wow. That was—

And the beast, its coppery metal shell gleaming like the dark, obsidian shell of the sun, raised a rounded pincher to bring it down, to bring it down and squash them all like bugs—

There was an explosion, bright and burning with fever, and the beast wrenched its limb away, stumbling on large feet, beady red eyes still wide, wide and without any brows or lids, large and staring…

Zelda had her metallic hand extended, and that hand was still slightly smoking. She yelled, "Go around!"

Go around? Did that mean… go around the trees? The river? Any one of those could have worked in that context…

Snake dodged right as the pincer was brought down again, now melting from the heat of another flame from Zelda. His hand strayed to his knife but was yanked away as a second pincher descended down onto him. He rolled again—

But the foot of the thing, the foot of the strange lobster thing was suddenly in his way. He rolled, and the thing shifted to face him, and it raised its pinchers again to slam down on him—

And Kirby leapt, sword held high, and slashed. The metal screeched under the blade, screeched in protest, and the gears underneath whirred and clacked even more, blocking out the creature's cries, harsh and brittle cries that ate at his skin, that set it tingling on edge.

Kirby landed, ducked under a wayward swing from the tank, and slashed at a foot. It moved back, wires in the limb hissing and snapping like loose serpents, but Kirby pressed on. Stab, swing, stab.

The black carapace on the foot split, ghastly smoke spilling out of the rent armor in billowing clouds. The lobster… Heavy Lobster… backed up several steps with a limp in its gait, but Kirby did not press on. Why? This thing had come out of nowhere and had tried to kill them. Why? It was the rock's fault! So why wasn't he pressing on and trying to finish the job?

"Kirby! Go!"

Zelda and Snake ran past on one side of the behemoth, which was sitting there, teetering on the bank with one foot smoking and smelling of burnt food. Kirby had burned food once, while trying to cook for a visitor… He had gotten distracted, lost his butcher knife, misplaced the cake tray, and then he had forgotten about what was in the oven… that had been one of the better mistakes, though…

Kirby ran after them, and the smell, that burning smell was stagnant, until it was the only thing he could smell, and it was stabbing his nose, or whatever body part he used to smell.

An unearthly screech, loud and ringing, sounded behind him: the beast's quarry was getting away, moving farther and farther from its pinchers as each moment elapsed… The tension in the air was a string about to snap... Something moved behind Kirby; he felt the whooshing air of its passage, its revolution on its feet as it turned to face them—

There was a roar, a roar in a human voice, a higher-pitched scream followed by the thud of heavy metal, and the exhalation of a tongue of fire that seemed to come from behind him—

"Kirby! Move, you idiot!"

Kirby bounced to the side, the flames howling after him…

And his word was bathed in red, red flames that melted him as he fell onto his side, that sank their teeth into his body and would not retreat, and the fiery teeth in him were turning to knives and his blood was like molten poison inside, boiling him from within—

He met the earth with a thud, and the impact... The impact was muted… Like falling through clouds, except he couldn't feel it and he didn't know what falling through clouds felt like…

The red curtains of flame faded, and he blacked out.

XxX

Heavy Lobster was screaming, screaming skyward, claws wide and snapping, flames still billowing from the inside of the pinchers. He stomped his foot as Kirby fell, sword clattering out of his smoking hands to lay to rest.

It turned its red, red beady eyes on two other smaller figures at his feet. He screamed again, and his good foot stomped forward. Snake dove to the side, pushing Zelda away as the foot struck, a metallic meteor keen on crushing them to a pulp, a boneless, spineless mush—

Zelda got to her feet and danced left and right as flames seared towards her, sword raised as she rolled and lunged away. Eyes, eyes that were red like blood-dipped berries, stared listlessly after her from the tank's head, shining with a bright, cold light.

It screeched and suddenly zoomed forward, feet gone and replaced by treads in a mere blink, a mere second's notice, frozen air moving aside as Heavy Lobster set its claws wide in front of it as it continued to drive forward, exhaust spewing from the pipes behind him in a rush, in white haloes of smoke… Zelda was in the way—

A flash of blue met her eyes to her right. It, the flash, slammed into Heavy Lobster's side with the sound of crunching metal and a speeding gale, a gale that tore down settlements and seemed to rip the world to shreds—

Heavy Lobster tripped and slammed into the canyon wall, tipping over like an uneven scale. The blue glow followed it like a light trail as the impact brought chunks of dark, glasslike earth crumbling to the river below. Boulders crashed to the ground, clanging off the tank's shell, ricocheting off and splashing in the river. The sound… The sound rang in her ears, rang like a clanging bell that echoed off into—

Something landed next to her; the sound was soft, a feather against stone, or wood. Two paws patted gently into the chaos of vibrating metal and fallen stone, of inhuman, scratchy cries and splashes of water up the banks. The blue light was blinding, as if it had replaced the sun, had turned it a piercing shade of cobalt. Two wide eyes, wide and gleaming from the light reflecting around him, peered from a canine snout.

"Hello," Lucario said, his right hand glowing with something other than aura, something other than the cloud of azure energy floating restlessly around him, floating and fidgeting. He flicked a paw, and the paw flared with blue fire. "You need help, I assume."

Zelda stared. "Yeah."

And she looked some more. His paw, his right paw, was closed, hidden underneath a glove, and in the base of the glove lay a stone, small, gleaming in repressed quiet below the hole for his paw spike. It was clear, like crystal, like glass. And it gleamed and glowed, reflecting blue and violet colors.

There was a screech, and the canyon seemed to tremble. Rocks loosed themselves from the face, and dust rose to settle in the river, down to the riverbed as Heavy Lobster got to its feet. One foot smoking, the other prodding along in stomps, in padding footsteps that made the earth shake. Eyes wide, eyes for the jackal Pokémon in front of it.

A burst of flame seared forth, from the flame-proof insides of metal claws with burnt coatings outside.

Lucario raised his paw, the paw with the glove, and the flame seemed to dissolve where it flared as Lucario's own blue flame soared forward, a corona of sapphire energy spreading in a ring, a halo.

The blue aura continued to fly and slammed into Heavy Lobster, sinking through his front. It staggered back but rushed forward just as quickly, smoky exhaust flowing behind suddenly as it rammed forward.

The clouds settled, and Lucario had jumped to the right, feet still soft and gentle, feet almost unmoving. Heavy Lobster had shot by it, a blur of dark, pestilent metal scorching the air around it.

A movement, a movement from Lucario: he was vaulting off the canyon wall, all four paws a-gleam with energy, flinging his curling body at the tank, eyes smoking with a sky-blue frenzy. And he landed on Heavy Lobster's back.

His body seemed to light up, light up like a blue lantern in the night sky. Like a domino chain, the aura spread, into the air and into the tank below his feet.

Heavy Lobster screamed and bucked, sparks flying off the carapace. Lucario landed on his feet, the energy around him dying and shriveling.

"Hello, friends," someone called above Heavy Lobster suddenly, which lay on its side now, glinting in blue light.

All three of them looked up.

Zero.

"So I feel like Heavy Lobster should have a bit of… backup, yes? It should have happened a while ago. Hmm. Maybe I should have sent him along with reinforcements in the first place."

Zelda froze, Snake froze, and Lucario looked up. "Why, I haven't seen you in a long while," he said without glancing left, glancing right, losing his stern, stony face. "Hello, Zero."

"Yes, hello, Lucario," Zero murmured, making eye contact. "Well, have fun with reinforcements."

As he dissolved where he hovered, the air below him simmered, simmered with bubbling and frothing shadows, gathering in a black hole. The shadows settled, the air cooled and calmed, and a face, a body, appeared from the miasma, then forming pointed ears, a cap, a gray tunic, and the face—

The face was smooth again, smooth and pearly and still gray and black… It was no longer burnt—

Link looked at the three of them, looking above Kirby's prone body, prone body blackened and frozen under a shell of ash.

And more miasmas frothed, frothed into existence alongside the tank and next to Link, and Heavy Lobster was on its feet… The dark shapes frothed and created more shapes and people, people with swords, spears, shields and maces as they divided and split—

Lucario stepped forward, and the atmosphere around him felt charged, fired with chilling particles.

Link stepped back, once, twice, three times. His entourage, this plasmatic army followed in his steps.

He, his misty form, jumped backwards, high, higher than the seemingly impossibly high void, the interminable sky that was clouded black like midnight. He landed on Heavy Lobster's back, Master Sword withdrawn and shining a metallic purple along the blade.

What happened next—

The world seemed to fade in intensity, Heavy Lobster's claws glowed in a shade of red, and the world blacked out, faded again into nothing.

XxX

"Zelda." Lucario was saying, "Zelda."

She was on her back, every inch of her screaming and twitching and feeling her eyes grow cold and blurry. Kirby was lying next to her, still in ashes and charred skin. Snake…

Where was he?

"Zelda," Lucario said again. "Zelda, come on…"

Snake was there, lying down next to her, but at this point that wouldn't have been good for him at all, especially not after what he went through—

"Zelda!"

She bolted upright from her position lying down, and felt her left leg snapping, but it was probably already broken before and she was yelling herself raw, yelling so her throat felt like it would swell and explode—

And the red glow around her was deafening, but it was impossible for something she could see as color to make any sound at all… Color couldn't make sound because it wasn't a concrete idea, or object—

She gasped, sweat rolling down her face, her mask, cold, "Where are… Where are we…?"

Lucario lifted his head as he knelt nearby, looked about, black bangs beside his ears bobbing along. "I don't know." And the red sky stretched on over monoliths of stone like claws of furious blood etched into the earth. The dirt was packed and a thin brown, the rivers were crusted over.

"But this isn't Dark Star," he murmured. "That's all I know."

Zelda looked about. She felt her head throbbing. Pulsing, pounding, screaming and twisting. She moved her leg and felt her head. There was a bump there, a bump that seemed to be growing and popping up higher with each moment.

She rubbed her thigh, the thigh of her broken leg. "Yeah, okay."

Her cheeks were wet.

"You'll be fine," Lucario said simply.

She choked. "Yeah. Alright."

XxX


End file.
